


The Red Queen

by Faiakishi



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Asexual Daud (Dishonored), Canon-Typical Violence, Dad Daud, Heavy Angst, Medium Chaos (Dishonored), Suicidal Thoughts, and billie is the empress, he's still a douchebag don't worry, name-dropping every character ever, shitty symbolism, that role reversal au where daud is the royal protector, the adventures of knife dad, thomas is a fucking nerd, void bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-06-06 04:46:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 306,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15187094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faiakishi/pseuds/Faiakishi
Summary: Through a series of strange and improbable events, Billie Lurk is Empress. Daud is her Royal Protector and mentor-until she receives a blade through the gut and Daud is framed for her murder. Six months later, Daud finds himself bearing the Outsider's Mark, and he burns with a new purpose: to save the Empress's brother, Thomas, and restore him to the throne.Featuring Corvo and Jessamine as badass avian-themed assassins, Lizzy Stride as the sassiest Samuel ever, and the weirdest (and most inefficient) conspiracy to ever grace the Isles.





	1. Death to the Empress

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the Role Reversal AU that no one asked for. I did get the original idea from a Tumblr post, but since Tumblr is a bunch of sluts I haven't been able to find the original post since. I wasn't going to post this originally, but I figured after the first thirty pages were written that I might as fucking well.  
> Alternative title: In Which I Accidentally Type Dad Way Too Often

Dunwall had never been home to him, but Daud did miss it while he was away. Even with the rats, the plague still lurking in the corners, it was still the same familiar skyline. Same buildings with the same blue roofing. Same city. Their city.

And while he didn’t take much comfort in luxury, there was comfort in Dunwall Tower. Knowing every nook and cranny, good places to hide and spy on people and the right way to sneak down to the kitchens in the middle of the night without making a ruckus. There was comfort in familiarity. He missed the reliability. He missed the people he worked with.

He missed his Empress.

The gardens were in full bloom by now, so even if Daud could see up past the fencing, his view would be obscured by roses and hydrangeas. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see her from the water. Only the top of the patio she liked to conduct her business under, during the warmer months. Where she could feel the sun on her face, and watch the sea.

She never wanted to be Empress, he often thought with a heavy heart. She wanted to be the captain of a ship. Riding on the backs of waves, free as a bird. He promised her freedom. Now, all he could give her was security.

And a bit of help, Daud thinks, with the correspondence from Morley tucked away in his coat pocket. He didn’t like leaving Dunwall for so long, but this was one thing he could do to ease the Empress’s burden. Something that might provide a solution for Dunwall’s problems. And in Daud agreeing to go, it was one less thing for her to worry about.

  
_“If there was anyone else as capable as you, I would have sent them."_ Her voice rang clearly in his head as the water lock brought them up, the memory of the audiograph she recorded for him forever burned into his mind. _“But there is no one else, and the Spymaster was right to insist I send you.”_ He could practically hear the smile in her voice, imagine how it played out across her face. _“Don’t fret over me. I can handle myself in the meantime.”_ He must have listened to it a hundred times over in the past two months, as they received rejection after rejection. Remembering that she could indeed handle herself. Remembering who he was doing this for. It kept him sane. It kept him going. _“Just come back to us, and bring good news. We’ll figure this out.”_

He fulfilled at least one of her requests. Patting the place where the letter rested, unopened and unread, he prayed he could deliver on his second promise. The King of Morley had handed it to him personally, the wax on the seal still warm. For the Empress’s eyes only.

Stepping out of the boat house, Daud strains to see over the fence, the flower beds. Under the pavilion. And he sees her.

Billie Lurk. The Empress.

She stands tall, her back straight and her arms folded. She’s looking away from Daud, so there’s no catching her eye, but that’s fine. He’ll see her soon.

He’s proud of her. He’ll never say it in so many words, but whenever he looks at her, so regal and poised, his heart swells with pride. It’s sometimes hard to make Billie the Empress match up with the scruffy kid he took in all those years ago.

It didn’t seem as long to him, but it was half her lifetime ago that he found her. Twelve years old, skinny and malnourished. Purple circles under her eyes, dark hair falling out in chunks from stress.

He didn’t have much to offer. He had been a killer. A thief. And he worked alone. But he let her sleep in whatever hole in the ground he was squatting in. Fed her and made sure she had clothes that would keep out the Dunwall chill and her boots didn’t have too many holes in them. Taught her how to wield a sword and shoot a gun. She slept better. Started gaining weight and shot up a foot seemingly overnight.

When she was thirteen, they found out she was a princess.

Her mother had cast her out, unwanted, when she was ten. She hadn’t cared where Billie ended up. She yelled at her on her way out, told her she’d probably die in the mud. She neglected to tell her that her father was the Emperor.

The Emperor was unmarried. Never formally courted any woman. He had no other children, supposedly. Or perhaps Billie was the only one he could track down. Daud secretly feared that there were others, and that they would try to lay claim to the throne. That Billie would be hurt just for sitting on a throne she never asked for. The years that had passed lessened his fears, somewhat, but they were still there.

Regardless, Billie was the one he found. The one he whisked off to Dunwall Tower to play the part of his princess. Billie was the one he gave fancy shoes and jewelry to, the one he immediately had placed with a team of tutors to get her education up to princess standards. She was illiterate before she met Daud, and though he did teach her how to read and write, he had been more concerned with teaching her how to defend herself on the streets of Dunwall than how to write in script. But then her combat training took a backseat to formal education, as Billie had to learn math, Seven Strictures, natural philosophy. She needed to know everything an Empress needed to know, because the Emperor was dying.

If he had done what he was supposed to do, gotten married young and spat out an official heir or two, before his sickness became apparent, then he wouldn’t have had to pluck Billie off the streets. If he had other bastards that were easier to find, he wouldn’t have bothered looking for her. He would have been perfectly content to let Billie rot in the streets.

The Emperor had acted the part of a proud father, sure, dressed her up and showed her off to Dunwall high society. Bragged about her quick wit and her frequent victories against seasoned opponents in palace duels, though everyone agreed that she had a tendency to play dirty. But he didn’t care. Billie had been nothing more than a solution to the Emperor’s last problem. Finding an heir before his illness took him. And it claimed him fast. Billie was thirteen when she became a princess, and at fourteen, she was an Empress.

It had been a rough decade, with greedy nobles and ambitious politicians constantly scheming to steal her power, break it up and make off with it in chunks. What was strength on the streets was weakness in Dunwall courts: Billie’s childhood in the slums was shameful where it had once been a mark of triumph, a signal of personal strength. The way she spoke and even moved would have earned her respect among the gangs, but nobles would turn their noses up at actions so undignified.

Daud was just glad she had brought him with. He couldn’t pretend to make it all go away, couldn’t be Empress for her. The Emperor had even thought him to be a hindrance to Billie’s success, to earning the people’s respect-and maybe he was. But as long as people’s eyes were on him, as long as they whispered about his shadowy past and his uncouth behavior, those were less eyes on Billie, less rumors being started about her. And in the end, less distrust in her.

And even if he couldn’t solve all her problems for her, Daud knew his presence was comforting to his Empress. He was familiar. Someone she trusted. Who cared. She felt more at ease with him around, happier. And Daud felt the same way when he was with her.

“Daud! You’re back!”

And this made him happy too.

Thomas runs over the footbridge that connects the boathouse with the rest of the estate, stopping short of running into Daud as he practically vibrates from excitement. His cheeks are ruddy, his blond hair messed up, and by the Void did Daud miss being home.

“Thomas.” Daud grins, touches Thomas’s shoulder. He’s never been one for hugs. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

Thomas just smiles, and does that thing where he tries to stand at attention and ends up looking ridiculous. He’s seventeen now, almost an adult, but he has the worst case of baby face. He was five when Daud first found him digging through the trash, behind the condemned building he and Billie were living in that week, and his face didn’t seem to change for a good decade. Billie often teases him, tells him she finds him adorable. Daud knows the last thing Thomas wants to be is adorable.

“You’ll tell me about your trip, right? You _must_ have some stories.”

“I have a letter for Billie,” Daud says, stepping away from Thomas. “Walk with me though? The idiots I’ve been sailing with aren’t very interesting conversationalists.”

Thomas quickly falls into step. “Billie’s busy with the Spymaster. I’d rather not deal with her more than I have to, and I doubt you do either.”

Daud suppresses a shiver, but shakes his head. “I really should meet with your sister.”

“Can we spar first? Please?” Thomas stops and turns to him, giving Daud the puppy eyes he knows Daud can’t say no to. “Let me show you what I’ve been practicing.”

Thomas wants to be out in the streets, fighting corruption or whatever it is he sees as the enemy. When Daud first took him in, he had ambitions of joining the Navy. Swore that he was going to be an Admiral one day, and then he’d buy a big house for the three of them so they didn’t have to be homeless anymore. As the dreams of five-year-olds are wont to do, it fizzled out and never became a reality. And after they moved to Dunwall Tower, the only thing Thomas aspired to do was ride down every banister in the building. But the dreams of children often stayed with them throughout their lives.

Even now, Thomas wears a jacket of dark grey, reminiscent of a uniform. Daud wears a similar coat-in blue, matching the highest ranked officers of the Watch. While Thomas’s hair would be past regulation length, he makes up for it with pressed pants and a starch white shirt buttoned up to the top. If he can’t join the City Watch, he certainly wants people to think he’s an officer at first glance. Daud thinks Thomas is too young to be caught up in that false bravado, knows he can’t be allowed to fight. But still. Daud gets it.

Daud sighs and rolls his eyes. “Fine. But just a quick set.”

Thomas grins and runs ahead. Daud will never tell him how childish he looks when he gets excited like this, because he knows Thomas will try to reign in the behavior if he does. And Daud loves watching him like this.

“Billie told me to practice to a metronome, to get my rhythm down.” Thomas bites his lip, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“It’s a swordfight, not a dance,” Daud barks as he takes his first swing. Thomas blocks it expertly and deflects the blade. He’s good with defensive measures. Not so much with the rest.

Thomas smiles. “So it’ll be useful for two things!”

“You keep telling yourself that. I’ll keep beating your ass into next month.”

Thomas is not Billie’s brother. But, to allow them to come to Dunwall Tower with her, Billie had to lie. She claimed that Daud had raised her, for much longer than he actually had, which would have made it a controversial and ungrateful move to toss him out. For Thomas...with Thomas, she had to tell the Emperor that Thomas was her half-brother, that they shared a mother. Which proved Daud’s theory that the Emperor didn’t actually remember Billie’s mother, as Billie described her as being darker than herself, while Thomas was roughly the color of the peaches he and Billie liked to eat for breakfast. Daud was surprised they got away with the lie, but they did. Though he supposed nobles probably ended up doing a lot of mental parkour to justify how children looked, so at least it was nothing new. Billie’s resemblance to the Emperor was obvious, so thankfully there were few questions about her own parentage.

Their swords clash once again, and Daud pushes Thomas into stumbling a few steps. He’s stunned for barely a second, which would normally be more time than Daud needs. But it’s Thomas, and Daud isn’t going to crush him quite so hard. He waits, and Thomas returns with another strike, and this time their blades lock.

There were no close relatives to the Lurk line to rely on-none that were known to the public, anyway. A line of tragedy, political ostracizing, and fertility issues all converged to result in Billie, the only living member of her bloodline within at least five generations. On her father’s side, at least.

On her mother’s, there were probably plenty more, but Daud didn’t much care about them as long as they didn’t show their faces. Her mother was probably dead, or else she would have made herself known and milked her daughter’s power for all it was worth.

Nobody ever challenged the idea that she and Thomas were related, making him the closest thing to an heir there was.

Thomas’s brow wrinkles in concentration, pushing back against Daud’s sword arm. He’s fairly strong for his body type-but not as strong as Daud. He’s pushed back, and Daud waits.

“Come on, show me those moves you were so excited about!” Daud holds his arms open, his sword held loosely in his hand. “Attack me!”

Thomas wipes his mouth, looks up and grins. He rocks back on his feet, then he springs.

Daud could avoid it. But he doesn’t. He deflects, barely.

Of course, Thomas wasn’t actually royalty. He wouldn’t be even if Billie really was his sister. His position as second-in-line to the throne was only temporary, just until Billie’s own children took that spot. Which, despite her misgivings, she would have to have. Someday.

Preferably soon, if her advisors had anything to say about it. It was horrible to suggest anything good had come from the plague, but at least it made the pressure to marry and spawn lessen up. Daud hadn’t seen a suitor in over a year. Thank the Outsider for small miracles.

In a few short seconds, Thomas is on the ground and Daud is sheathing his blade. “Not bad.” He holds out his hand to pull Thomas up. “Your footwork is still sloppy, though. It tripped you up.”

“I’ll work on it.” Thomas brushes the dirt off his fine clothes, inspecting his cuff for rips. “I guess we better go see Billie then. Ugh, and the Spymaster.”

“Strength in numbers, Thomas, strength in numbers.”

Thomas talks animatedly about his lessons as they ascend the stairs. He’s apparently being instructed in astronomy now, which strikes Daud as a weird subject to focus on for someone in Thomas’s position, but he’s brushing those concerns aside when something white appears at the corner of his eye.

“Why the hell are you still here?” Daud barks out, barely waiting for a pause in Thomas’s speech. Prince Luca Abele turns his head, one leg up on the same bench some mousy woman in a vest sits on with a book in her lap. He turns and grins at the two.

“Lord Daud! Nice to see you back in one piece.”

Thomas steps behind Daud, almost hiding from view. Daud folds his arms. “I thought your parents were demanding you return to Serkonos, with the plague and all.”

Luca just raises his arms towards the sky, the whiskey in his glass in danger of sloshing out and wetting his hair. “Quarantine, my friend! The Lady Spymaster recommended I stay in Dunwall until a cure for this wretched plague is developed.”

“There’s no official quarantine yet,” The woman Luca had been bothering whispers, her brown hair hiding her face as she stares down her lap. Daud knows her from somewhere, but he can’t quite place her. He pays the fact little mind. Billie meets with a lot of people, and Daud usually tunes it all out, so he can focus on her safety.

Thomas pipes up from over Daud’s shoulder. “You’re seriously worried you might have the plague? You down elixirs like water.”

“As we all should be, boy.” As if on cue, he takes an open elixir and pours some into his drink, then downs the whole concoction. “It’s more for my attendants. They could bring it back home, spread it to the other servants. You know the working folk, they don’t keep clean like us. The rats are attracted to them. Maybe it’s something in our blood, but we just don’t get sick like them.”

“We need to be seeing the Empress,” Daud says quickly, before he can retort. Or stab Luca through his fat neck. “Prince Luca. Ma’am.”

The Duke and Duchess of Serkonos had another son they could always fall back to, one Daud personally thought would be a better heir. But he doubted that killing their firstborn would improve the Duke and Duchess’s disposition to the crown. He wouldn’t be doing the Empress any favors by murdering Luca.

“I hate him,” Thomas complains as Daud leads him away. “He’s loud, rude to the servants, and he always smells of drink. Plus he’s always flirting with Billie, making lewd comments to her.”

Daud really might go back and stab him. “I can’t believe she’s letting him stay here.”

Thomas flips his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, she’s not. He and his staff are staying at the Captain’s Chair, in the Distillery District.”

“I thought they closed that place down after the owners died from the plague.”

“They cleaned it up, I guess. He wanted to be there. It’s right across the street from that brothel.”

“Poor girls.” Daud rubs the bridge of his nose. Businesses were going under left and right, industry had all but stopped, but of course the damn brothel would still be open.

“At least he’s only here about half the time now.” Thomas sighs. “I just wish Billie would get rid of him for good.”

“The Spymaster would pitch a fit about that.” As if on cue, the Spymaster’s voice rang out above them. They couldn’t quite catch exactly what it was she was saying, but Billie’s response was much clearer.

“They’re plague victims, not rats!”

“My lady, if you would just listen-”

“I have, and I’m done doing so.”

They come into Daud’s view them, Billie Lurk and her Spymaster Kaldwin. And Daud can think of few times he’s ever seen the Empress look so furious.

“These are my citizens,” Billie punctuates her words with her hand. “They deserve their chance to survive, and we will give that to them. We will save as many from the plague as we can. Worry about your own job, _Lady Spymaster_ , and let me do mine.”

Thomas takes the opportunity to bound forward, waiting at the precipice for acknowledgement. Billie notices him, and the Spymaster turns her head.

“Lady Kaldwin. Empress. I bear news of Lord Daud’s return!”

Billie stifles a giggle, but doesn’t look past Thomas. “Thank you, Thomas.” She turns her gaze to the Spymaster. “You may take your leave, Lady Kaldwin.”

“As Her Majesty pleases.” The Spymaster bows deeply, then brings herself up to her impressive full height before turning to Daud. “Lord Protector! It’s a pleasure to see you home and safe.”

Daud nods to her, but doesn’t respond. The Spymaster’s lip turns out in a pout as she flounces away, turning to the guard posted there as she does. “Come. Let’s give the little family some privacy.”

Daud rolls his eyes. He’s well aware of the rumors that surround his relations with both Thomas and the Empress. Plenty claim that he’s sleeping with one or both of them. Many believe that he is Thomas’s biological father. These rumors have crossed at times. It makes him sick to think about, but Daud resolves to think of it sparingly.

And when he’s here, with Billie meeting his eye and lighting up at the sight of him, Daud thinks it all worth it.

“Daud. You’re back.” She’s grinning now, her eloquence and decorum falling away. She moves towards him and grips his forearm, and he grabs her elbow back.

“Lurk.”

She steps back, the sea breeze ruffling her red sweater. Summer is already upon them, so she must be hot. It wouldn’t do for an Empress to show her arms though, or, Outsider forbid, her shoulders. Just wouldn’t be proper. She still looks refined as always though, her jacket’s gold-stitched pattern resembling flower petals, the hem falling just short of her knees and open in the front, showing off her simple white blouse and cut black pants. Her hair has been allowed to stay curly and is contained in a low bun by a few intricate braids. Sparse jewelry, just how she likes it. Only her signet ring and a pendant of rose quartz her father had given her.

“Do you have any news for me?” At this, Daud produces the envelope from his breast pocket, a slight bow accompanying the act of handing it to her. Thomas pipes up in the background.

“Aw, Billie, Daud just got home! Can’t we take a break for a bit?”

“Hush, Thomas,” Daud says without tearing his eyes from the Empress. He points to the envelope. “The Duke and the High Judges both had nothing they could give us. No cure, no aid, no troops. But the King gave this to me.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Billie works the envelope open without breaking the wax seal, with one fingernail Daud is convinced she keeps long purely for this purpose.

He coughs. “No. But he told me it was private.”

Billie nods, then turns away to hold the paper to the sunlight. It’s short-one page, and though the writing is small, there’s little the letter could realistically hold. If Morley was sending any sort of aid, there would be pages of documents outlining what was being sent and when, recipes and research on anything that could be used as a cure. This letter couldn’t bear good news.

As the Empress reads, her face falls, further confirming Daud’s prediction. “I can’t believe them,” she says, stepping away from the two of them. “They’re enacting an official quarantine. They’re going to wait out the plague and let it turn Dunwall into a graveyard.”

“What?” Daud steps closer to her. Billie turns her head away.

“Tyvia, Serkonos, and Morley were in correspondence behind my back. They agreed to blockade us.” She sighs, the letter dropping from her hands. “I don’t blame them for wanting to protect their own citizens, but to cut us off like that? My city is dying.”

Thomas steps forward and places a hand on her shoulder. “What can I do, Billie?”

“We can do nothing, Thomas. Seems like that's all I ever can do.” Billie laughs then, bitter and angry, turning to face him.

Thomas presses his lips together like he wants to say something, but he just shakes his head instead. “Hang on, your Majesty, your hairpin is loose.”

“Again? I’ve lost count of how many times that’s happened today.” Billie turns around to allow Thomas to fix her hair, and lets out a groan when he removes the pin. “Oh, that feels so much better.”

Thomas turns over the hairpin in his hand. It’s a heavy piece, adorned with a diamond flower at the end. Daud can only imagine the headache it gives her. “Hold on. I’ll fix your hair.”

“Sure, but can you carry that for me until we go back inside? My outfit doesn’t have pockets.”

“Why would the Empress need pockets? Nobody is going to force you to carry your own shit.” Daud half-teases. Billie rolls her eyes.

“Your hair is always so difficult…” Thomas mutters as he fiddles with Billie’s braids. “But anyway, we should consider gathering alchemists here to work on a cure together. And make elixir doses mandatory to halt the spread of the plague.” He steps back, satisfied with his work on Billie’s hair. “I could go out there with the Watch, help distribute elixir.”

“You’re not going to get close to the afflicted,” Daud says, but he lets a small smile show.

“Daud’s right. I can’t risk either of you getting sick.” Billie sighs, but then seems to brighten up. “But you have some good ideas. We can talk about it after Daud’s homecoming dinner.”

Daud rolls his eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t arrange some party for me.”

“Oh, be quiet.” Billie smiles and turns towards him, still holding Thomas’s hand. “It’s for the crew and their families too. And you don’t have to go socialize-I just have to make a speech and then we can sit by ourselves and make fun of everyone else. Is that _agreeable_?”

“I’ll find a way to survive it,” Daud mumbles.

“I told you, we needed to bribe him with jello.” Thomas says. Billie throws her head back and laughs, squeezes Thomas’s hand, and Daud’s heart feels full. Everything may have gone to shit-with the plague, the politics, the promise of socializing later on. But being here, seeing Billie and Thomas enjoying each other’s company, the three of them working together. He feels content.

Billie opens her mouth, but her words fall away and her smile quickly turns to confusion, then distress. “Wait. Where did the guards go?”

They look around. True to her word, there are no guards in sight.

“Lady Kaldwin sent some away…” Thomas supplies meekly. Billie shakes her head. She’s fiddling with her signet ring, which she always does when she’s nervous. Sliding it on and off her finger, switching it onto other fingers, her other hand.

“She sent Rulfio away, where are the rest? There should be one posted by the gate, and one patrolling over there…”

Daud curses under his breath. “Come on. We need to get you both inside.”

Billie nods and moves to follow him. Thomas, however, pulls on her hand and points towards the water lock. “Billie…”

She turns, and curses. Daud is on them in a second, grabbing their shoulders and ushering them towards the palace. “Let’s go! Move!”

But he’s too late. The shadowy figures perched atop the lock cross the gap between the roof and the gazebo like they had wings.

Two land on the pavilion and Daud is quick to fire his crossbow. The attacker disappears before it can make contact with their chest, and the bolt harmlessly passes through the air and hits the stone railing behind them with such precise force that it sticks.

The other rounds on Daud and swings their sword, meeting Daud’s blade. They lock together, and Daud can make out every scratch, every detail in the metal work, right down to the curved beak where the nose should be.

The assailant is stronger than him, but at the last second, Daud kicks one of their legs out from under them. It’s enough. The attacker stumbles, Daud thrusts his blade forward, and once again they disappear in a flash of blue.

There’s a yell, male, and too deep to be Thomas’s. Daud still whirls around with his heart in his throat. Billie is brandishing the knife she keeps hidden on her person, blood on the blade and the witch Daud had tried to shoot holding their jaw. She goes in for another stab, but her attacker is gone.

Maybe five seconds. Thomas was just drawing his blade.

“Are you two alright? Were you hurt at all?”

Daud rushes to them. Billie’s face is stone, and she shakes her head. “No. We’re both fine.”

Thomas is shaking like a leaf. Daud puts his hand on his shoulder. “They’re gone. I need to get you inside.” He turns to Billie. “No fucking dinners tonight. You two are sitting in your apartments while we investigate this.”

“But Daud…” Thomas has to lean over then, bracing his hands on his knees. Daud shakes his head.

“No fucking buts. There’s been an attempt on the Empress’s life. Possibly on yours. Your safety is more important than dinner. The crew will understand!” He looks up to address Billie directly. “People will have to understand. We’re locking the Tower down.”

Billie nods, her eyes set on something in the distance. Then her neck snaps to the side and her mouth opens in a shriek.

Thomas jumps, and Daud raises his blade. Another witch appears in front of him. He’s poised. Ready to attack. And then Daud’s sword falls from his hand.

It’s like someone has grabbed hold of his hair and wretched his head back, forcing him to watch. Someone else is under his skull, looking through his eyes. Controlling the strings, because his have been cut.

Daud is frozen. He can’t move. Can’t speak.

He can do nothing but watch.

Thomas is attacked first. He parries-bad form, Daud uselessly notes. He crumbles and staggers back a step. Nerves have him performing poorer than in his duels. The assailant swipes their left hand over his, grabbing his wrist and pulling it out, forcing his arm down. Thomas’s blade clatters to the ground. Shock and confusion colors his features as he looks up at his assailant. Then they plunge their sword down, in between the two bones of his forearm.

“THOMAS!” Billie screams. He can see her glance his way, and he can see the questions in her eyes. Why isn’t he helping? Why isn’t he protecting them? That’s his job. He’s their protector, and Thomas has just been stabbed. And he’s just standing there. Watching.

Billie rushes forward with her knife in her hands, but a blue blur comes at her and sending her flying into a pillar. Her knife clatters to the ground at the same time her back meets the stonework. Another witch appears, this one with a prominent beak built into their mask. They rush forward and grab Billie by the throat before she can recover.

Thomas screams something, probably Billie’s name. Daud’s vocal cords are paralyzed, his lungs filled to bursting with ice. Not that it mattered he couldn’t scream. There was enough screaming in his head to make up for it.

As the assassin drives their blade into Billie’s stomach.

Her mouth is open, but all that comes out is a choking sound that will stay with Daud for a thousand years. The assassin withdraws their blade, bringing with it a horrible, disgusting squelching sound as Billie’s blood pours out over the pavilion. Her eyes are wide, looking around in confusion. Then the assassin grabs her shoulder and throws her to the ground.

“Lurk!” Thomas’s voice is the only thing that isn’t complete static to him. He can’t turn his head, can’t even move his eyes, can only see the briefest glimpse of Thomas trying to bat away his own attacker with his intact arm. His blade is on the ground, his sword arm bleeding and useless. The witch disappears in a flash of blue, and appears again behind Thomas. Daud’s voice is still paralyzed. He can’t warn Thomas before his good arm is bent behind his back, the assailant’s other arm snaking around his shoulders. “No! Don’t touch me! Daud!”

It’s too late. Thomas’s feet are lifted off the ground, and he and his kidnapper disappear in a cloud of feathers and blue. And Thomas is gone.

The assassin standing over Billie Lurk turns. Daud feels something snap in his head, and he falls to the floor. Every muscle in his body screams at him like they had been stretched out and set on fire, like he’s a well-tuned harp and someone had just ran a knife through every string.

He felt sick to his stomach and like his head was a block of stone, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that the assassin’s shoes were clicking away as they walked across the pavillion, it didn’t matter that his head was throbbing and that he was going to throw up at any second. He ignored it. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was his Empress.

Daud crawls over to her, his stomach dragging on the floor and his hands getting wet with her blood. How was there so much blood? Was it all hers? It couldn’t be. There was just too much of it.

Billie’s head lolls to the side, her unfocused gaze landing on Daud. Her necklace is askew, and her fancy blouse is almost completely red. There’s too much red, too much blood outside her. There won’t be enough for inside of her as well.

If Daud can get there, if he can find the wound, he can fix this. He can hold it closed. It can’t be all her blood. He can put her back together, fix her. He has to.

“Daud…” Billie’s voice is faint, like how she used to speak when she was young and bone-tired. If he can get to her, she’ll wake up fully. She’ll be okay.

He reaches out and touches her hand. She curls her fingers, like she’s trying to squeeze. Daud’s heart flutters with hope.

Then there’s a boot at the back of Daud’s head. His skull smashes against the stonework, and somebody steps over his body. Billie’s hand leaves his, and a female voice rings out above him. “Corvo, what in the world are you doing, we’re not-”

And he feels the slightest of breezes, and then he’s alone.

Blood. Blood on his hands, blood all down his coat. Blood on the ground. Billie’s blood. They stabbed Billie. They...they killed-

“By the Outsider! What happened here?!”

There’s footsteps, and someone pulls Daud into a kneeling position. The Spymaster is looking around, but there are no assassins to be seen. No Thomas. No Empress.

Daud opens his mouth, but there are no words. He knows he should speak, knows he has to report what happened. But is no order, no formation to his thoughts. Words do not come to him.

Then Prince Abele comes racing in, already out of breath. “I saw it! Daud killed the Empress!”

The accusation doesn’t even sink in for a minute. Not until everyone gasps and looks at him with fearful eyes.

And then Daud blinks, because it sounds so ridiculous to his ears. Like it all just had to be a joke.

“Daud. What have you _done?"_  The Spymaster’s voice quivers dramatically. She whips her head around, searching the gazebo. “What have you done with the Empress? Where is her body? And where is Lord Thomas?”

“He might have thrown the body over the wall,” the mousy, brown-haired woman Luca had been talking to earlier supplies. “Tried to hide what he’s done. The tide is in; the sea would have swallowed her whole.”

The sea? They’d never let him lay her to rest at sea. He knew better than to try.

“Ready the search boats. The tide will go out soon and I won’t have it taking the Empress’s body with it.” The Spymaster commands to a few guards, who nod and run off without a pause. Luca is still raving in the background. Daud is still speechless.

Thomas is gone, and Billie is...she’s...

“I saw him stab her though! Look, there’s the knife he used!”

Someone grabs Billie’s knife from where it left her hands. It’s still dripping with blood-the assassin’s, most likely, as the bloody outline of Billie’s body is a good two feet away.

It’s barely six inches long. The blade that ended Billie’s life skewered her, driving into her belly and exiting out her back.

But Daud can’t bring himself to point these things out. Can’t think coherent thoughts, can only observe. Can only remember.

“Nobody’s doubting that, Luca.” Lady Kaldwin’s voice is calm, almost soothing as she addresses the prince. “It’s all very clear. Daud killed the Empress.”

She’s dead.

His Empress is dead.

Billie is dead.

The Spymaster turns her head and sets her beady, snaky eyes on him.

He couldn’t save her.

“We’ll see you hanged for this, Daud.”

Daud only sees a blur as someone slams their fist into the side of his head, and then it’s all black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU is basically 'Billie and Daud have less reason to be, but are still incredible bitches'.  
> So a few notes. I know Lurk isn't actually her last name, but for the sake of the story it's going to be.  
> Billie's the same age as she is in canon, 24, but Thomas is almost certainly aged down. We know literally nothing about canon Thomas, but he's probably in his twenties as well. He needed to be able to fit into the 'damsel-in-distress' role, at least for a bit, so I had to nerf Thomas. Made him a teenager, emphasized his strategical skills while downplaying his swordsmanship, and gave him a grievous and debilitating injury. Hopefully that'll do it.


	2. A Long Day In Dunwall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title for the first part: Delilah's Soliloquy. Which the Outsider makes a drinking game out of. (he takes a shot every time she mentions herself)

The torturer giggles as the iron sizzles against his flesh. He can’t identify this one-only that she is female, but then, most of his torturers have been.

They wear masks, so Daud can’t distinguish one from the other. He only knows most of them were women from their voices. From their squeals and laughs. Their taunts.

_‘Was her blood still warm against your flesh? Could you feel her trying to breathe around your sword?'_

_‘Was she still alive when you threw her into the sea? Or did you wait and watch the light leave her eyes?’_

_‘Did she cry out for you? She trusted you, you know. More than anyone.’_

They were cruel. But Daud deserved cruelty.

The six months since the Empress’s death had seen him a prisoner in Coldridge, a place that truly lived up to its name. The bitter Dunwall winter somehow seemed even stronger within the cold walls of the prison. The only warmth he felt now was from this.

Another sizzle. Another line on his arm. He grits his teeth and stares daggers at the woman in the mask.

The tortures have stayed relatively the same since the beginning, but the hot irons are new. He understands why: he only has so much skin to burn. But he supposed the same was true for the whipping. They could, however, hold him upside-down for hours on end as many times at they wanted. They could nearly drown him, deprive him of sleep, half-starve him a million times and it would still be as potent as the last. He supposed they could have kept pulling out his teeth, but for some reason they stopped after three. Daud suspected the Spymaster-sorry, the Lady Regent-wanted to ensure he could still talk. To confess.

He might as well, the logical part of his head told him. It wasn’t as if it would change anything. They would still execute him. Thomas was still unreachable. Billie was still dead.

It took days for them to find her, he was told. Days of braving the winds and the tides, searching the shallows near the palace wall and sending divers down to check the deeper waters. But they had found her. Eventually.

The torturers had gleefully relayed the details to him, how her body was so bloated that she was only identified by her signet ring. How her fine clothing had been worn ragged, seaweed choking out her hair, her limbs so swollen they had to cut her outfit off in strips to examine what was left of her. Fish had laid eggs in the hollow of her stomach. Her funeral had been a short affair, casket nailed closed as they carted it through the city, to the Imperial Crypt. Sealed her in the vault that had bore her name since she was a girl.

“You may take your leave now,” The Lady Regent waves her hand. “Give him some time to think it over. Men often open up when they are close to death.”

The torturer sets her iron back into the fire and bows. She departs without a word, and the second the door is closed, the Lady Regent rounds on him.

“Oh, Daud…” She smiles and runs her fingers down his face. “Won’t it be a relief to sign the confession? To admit? The Abbey can perform your last rites then, and you can die with honor.”

Daud glares. He hasn’t spoken a word since Billie drew her last breath. It was the only source of pride he was allowed in here, and he wasn’t about to lose it.

Delilah sighs and moves away. “I would say I’m sorry for doing this to you, but I’m really not. You were always... _in the way._ ” She turns around with a flourish, resting her butt on a nearby table. “I thought you could be useful to me, at first. So close to the Empress. But you spurned my advances, ignored my sisters. We wondered if maybe you weren’t into women, or just liked them young, so I sent boys instead. I even tried to convince my brother-in-law to seduce you, if you can imagine.”

Her grin is like a hyena’s. Staring at him like she expects him to find it funny.

“But it was all in vain. You ignored them all. Just my luck that you were defective, that my charm wouldn’t work on you.”

Did she flirt with him? Daud can’t remember. He was focused on other things.

“But,” Delilah claps her hands together. “Just my luck, the Empress was blossoming into a woman, and she was _more_ than receptive to my affections.”

Daud strains against his bindings, itching to put his hands around Delilah’s throat. She stalks forward, staring down at him with a smile.

“We were young, beautiful, and the Empress was in need of someone who could help her relax.” She muses, running one finger down Daud’s cheek. “Oh, but you don’t want to hear about that, no? How I _defiled_ your Empress? How I snuck into her quarters at night, made her _sing_ my praises. How she all but worshipped me for it?”

He had never cared who she was seeing. He didn’t want to know any more than what was necessary. It just wasn’t his place to intervene. And it wasn’t Delilah’s to tell him all this.

“She told me _everything_ ,” She coos, rubbing her hand down Daud’s arm and irritating his burns. “The nights we spent together, she would lay by my side and tell me all her secrets. And all of yours as well.” She smiles then, showing off all her teeth. “She was always good at discovering things she shouldn’t, which had the side effect of making my job harder. She would have made an excellent Spymaster on her own. A pity our roles weren’t reversed, but I’m fixing that.

“She sang like a whale on those nights. Spilling out her most private thoughts. My little songbird.”

Daud chokes as Delilah opens one of his fragile, healing burns with her finger and drips blood down his arm. She pulls her hand back, looking at the blood on her nails in displeasure.

“But, like everything else, it all came to ruin when the plague came,” She sighs, turning away from Daud. “How the plague started in the first place is already suspicious, and it made the Empress distrustful. She knew someone was at fault for it. I looked into it, despite having infinitely more important matters on my hands, but the damage was done. She already didn’t trust me.”

Delilah picks up a cloth from the torturer’s cart, meticulously cleaning her nails as she speaks. “But she also wasn’t sure whether to trust _you_. And that’s where I found my opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Win back her trust...and get rid of you.

“You were always around the Empress. I was limited in my time alone with her. And no matter what I told her, what ideas I planted in her head, she would always run off to tell you or that brat of yours. And then she would change her mind again.”

She’s back to looking at Daud, but this time she keeps her distance. Her hand resting atop a table, standing with her legs crossed at the ankle. “Your little cruise around the Isles was our last chance. Without you around, I might win her back. She might see reason. I could always arrange a little accident for you, but her faith in me had to be _absolute_ before that. I couldn’t have her blaming me for your death.”

Delilah has her gaze set on a wall, her features narrowing as she begins to pace, gesturing angrily. “And it was fine at first! Things were almost normal between us. But then she started _missing_ you. She wanted your comfort, wanted to confide in _you_. She started getting angry with me whenever I tried to sow the seeds of doubt between you two, and it became clear. She would never be mine. She sealed her own fate by being too weak to weasel out of your hold on her.”

She rounds on Daud then, her voice sickeningly sweet. “You see, Daud, I had no choice. She had to die. Billie Lurk had to die.”

Daud stares. He knew Delilah had to have ordered the hit. He knew it could have only been her. But hearing it out loud enraged him.

Delilah stalks forward, clasping her hands together and smiling sweetly down at him. “So now we’re in the endgame. I will take care of this...plague nonsense. The people might weep now for their beautiful, dead Empress, but she will be a footnote in the history books. They will remember Delilah Kaldwin, who worked through her grief to single-handedly save a city. Who took on her Empress’s job by day and mourned her lover by night. Who enacted vengeance on her killer.”

She kneels down to his height, grabbing his bound, scarred hand and rubbing her fingers over his. Her hands are soft, unmarred, and his skin flakes upon contact. She leans in close and almost whispers the next bit. “And when Thomas takes the throne, I will be the one beside him. The _only_ one. I will be the one he trusts. The one he tells all his secrets to. And in time, he will come to love me.” She stands up then, beaming at him. “I will have what I deserve. And tomorrow, you will get yours.”

She turns away, saunters off with a dance in her step. She barely pauses as she tosses over her shoulder. “Goodbye, Daud.”

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t bother to fight when the guards bring him back to his cell, chain his hands and feet back up. What was the point? He had long since lost.

Daud lays down on the stone ledge that serves as his bed. The stone never warms with his body heat. Coldridge sucks the warmth from his skin, from his bones. From the very air.

He closes his eyes, not really sure if he wants to sleep or not. There is no respite from the pain. There’s pain in the interrogation room, pain of the body. That, at least, is a tangible thing. He can focus on it, lose himself in it.  

Here in his cell, there is a different pain to accompany his cold misery. Grief. The woman he practically raised, whom he accompanied for twelve long years, is dead.

Part of him wishes to cry, but he never does. It’s pointless. His tears will never bring her back. They won’t make Thomas any safer. He hasn’t cried since he was first taken from his mother, since he was beaten for showing weakness. Here, in Coldridge, a place that sought out the chinks in your armor and used those cracks to slip inside you, he could not show weakness. Not one bit.

Maybe he wasn’t truly grieving Billie then, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

Even in his sleep, the punishment never lessened. In the beginning, he hoped to revisit happier times in his dreams. See Billie and Thomas again. And sometimes, his wish was granted. But things would quickly take a turn for the worst.

Daud doesn’t know how many times he’s seen her die. They’ve had a number of near-misses throughout the years, and Daud would be lying if he said that those incidents haven’t haunted his nightmares before. But that was when they had all failed. Now, he watches Billie’s head explode as a sniper’s bolt hits the back of her skull, watches her cough and choke and finally slump over dead as her poisoned wine spills over the floor, and it feels familiar. Because he knows what that pain is like now.

The assassination itself is also a common dream. It replays in startling detail almost every night, so vivid Daud can smell the blend of sea water, roses, and blood in the air.

“You should eat, Daud.” There’s a guard at the bars, motioning to the ground. “This meal comes from a friend. You need to keep your strength up.”

Daud raises his head to watch the guard turn on his heel and walk away, but then lets it thunk back down. He probably should eat, he knows. But the space where they leave his food seems so far away, eating seems like so much effort.

Why bother? He’s going to die tomorrow. They’ll take him out of his cell and parade him, chained and filthy, in front of hundreds of nobles who paid through the nose for tickets to his execution. All he had to do is stand there as they tie the noose around his neck.

He’s not eager to die like that, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to death.

Maybe that was selfish. He failed at his job. He should have to deal with the consequences. But he was so, so tired.

He wanted to see Billie again.

Thomas was still alive, but there was nothing Daud could do to protect him now. Delilah would keep him...safe, at the very least. Daud wasn’t satisfied with that, but he would have to be. Thomas would live. Maybe he’d unveil the truth, worm out of Delilah’s hold. On his own. Daud couldn’t help him.

He wouldn’t eat. Maybe hunger would finally overtake his brittle bones, death would take him in the night. Then he could be with Billie again. Maybe his mother would be there too. He’d remember her face when he saw it, he was sure. He could tell her he was sorry. Tell both of them.

He was ready to die.

“Daud.”

It’s not the guard again. He doesn’t recognize the voice.

He pushes himself up, focusing on the figure in front of his cell. Something was wrong. There were shadows where the light normally fell, darkness where there was supposed to be a face.

The figure spreads his arms. “What a sad hand fate has dealt you. At the end of your rope, nearly thirteen years ago, you took in two children and swore to teach them how to survive in this harsh, untenable world. You didn’t expect to love them as you did. And almost as if the universe was rewarding you for your charity, one of those children turned out to be a little girl with more power than you could have dreamed of.”

Where were the guards? The other inmates on Death Row? No one was responding to this shadowy figure, who turns his dark face to the ground and begins to pace.

“You stuck around to take care of her, even though she didn’t need you anymore. You watched her grow from a mischievous little girl to a strong and intelligent young woman, glowing with pride the entire way. You knew she could be great. You would have stopped at nothing to make her so.” He holds up one hand, one finger, and stops in his tracks. “But this wretched city had other plans. Plague marred her rule, and then a jealous witch decided she needed to die. And now, everyone thinks you killed your beloved Empress.”

Daud keeps his eye on the figure, but he doesn’t see him disappear. There’s just shadows, the light shining the entirely wrong way, and suddenly the voice is coming from a completely different angle.

“But we both know the truth,” Daud nearly gasps. The figure is in his cell with him, on his other side, still cloaked in darkness despite the light shining directly on him. “Don’t we? We know what really happened that day, how enemies you didn’t even know you had scrambled to hide their tracks. You don’t want to see their plans succeed, let the truth die as idiots cheer to the sound of your neck snapping. Do you?”

“Go away.” Daud’s voice is rough, dry. Barely there after six months of disuse.

The figure raises his hands, as if in a shrug. “It just seems like a waste, that’s all. You, with so much talent. So much you could _do_. And Thomas.”

Whatever protests Daud had forming in his mind dissipate.

“Thomas is still out there, isn’t he Daud? He’s wondering where you are. Why you didn’t save him or his sister. Why you aren’t coming to his aid now. And you and I both know he needs it.”

Daud knows that. He knows that Thomas will be manipulated as Emperor, knows Delilah will take advantage of him. But Daud can’t stop her. Not like this.

He looks up again, but the figure is gone. There’s just the light falling on the slimy, dirty wall.

“We don’t want to keep him waiting do we?” The voice is everywhere, and nowhere. Daud can’t see him. It’s as if he’s in Daud’s head. “Your story doesn’t need to end at the end of a rope in the Coldridge gallows. Let’s see if we can do... _better_.”

And then the figure is by his side. Sitting on the stone bench with him, so close their legs almost touch, but Daud can feel no body heat from him. The figure waves his hand. “And to make things interesting…”

Daud gasps in surprise, and pain. A thousand hot knives are pushed into his hand, his flesh burning from the inside out. Dark symbols rise to the surface. Like they had always been there, right under his skin, waiting for someone to coax them out. Like they belonged there.

“My Mark.” Daud looks up then. The figure obscures the light shining through the bars, but Daud can see his face. Lips that seem to smile without moving the corners of his mouth, teeth that are far too white. Eyes a fathomless black that had no end. “Consider it a gift.”

And then he’s gone.

Daud sits for a moment, turning it over in his mind. He hadn’t had contact with anyone besides the interrogators for months. He was tired, cold, starved. Hallucinations were not impossible. Had that...really happened?

He checked the back of his hand. The Mark was still there, emblazoned in black across his flesh.

Daud clenches his hand, and there’s a tingle in his veins. Like his very blood gained new life. Some primal, unknown part of him recognizes it as _power_.

Could he use this? Could he escape Coldridge with this? Could he…

He could save Thomas.

He failed Billie. Failed Thomas once. He had to try.

Getting to his feet, Daud shoos the rats away and moves to the bars of his cell. He falls to his knees in front of the wooden tray with his morsel of bread, his allotment of water. He picks up the bread first, knowing he’d need the water to help swallow. It usually takes Daud three or four bites to choke down a heel of prison bread, but today, he swallows it in one. He stares at his empty hand in surprise, but chalks it up to hunger. He needs all his strength, now that he’s going to escape.

He goes to grab his mug of water and is surprised to see a ripped piece of paper stuck to the plate. He carefully pries it free and unfolds it slowly, to avoid tearing where it is damp, and a golden key tumbles out.

Daud shakes, and tries to read the runny, wet letters. It couldn’t be what he thought it was.

 _Daud-_  
_We know you didn’t kill the Empress. We aim to expose her killers and put the rightful heir on the throne._  
_This is the key to your cell. Once you’ve freed yourself, make your way to the interrogation room. There will be a container of explosives hidden beneath a table. Take it, and use it to blow the front gate. Once you’re out, jump into the river and lose yourself in the sewers._  
_Good luck. -Friends of the Empress_

Daud’s hands tremble as he reads the words. Then, taking a deep breath, he folds the paper until it’s the size of his thumbnail and swallows it.

His chains clank as he walks, so he has to wind them around his fists and hold the one connecting to his ankles taunt-but not too taunt, as he needs to be able to travel fast. He slides his arm out of his cell and mashes the key around where he thinks the lock is.

He hits it. He twists, and the lock clicks. The door slides open.

Daud is free.

He has no time to dwell on the thought. He creeps out, his eyes scanning the room. There’s one guard at the other end, posted at the door. Looking the other way.

Daud steps forward, but the jangle of his chains causes him to pause. He looks around, but there is no key close by. He’d bet that the guard had them, but getting over to him without causing a ruckus would be the challenge.

What was it he felt, back in his cell with the Mark flooding through his veins? Daud clenches his hand, focuses on a spot, and the Mark flares to life.

Suddenly he’s twenty feet forward. Moved there in the blink of an eye. He slaps his hand over his mouth to stifle his surprise.

Right. He can do that now, apparently. Wasn’t sure how, he realized, he just sort of...knew.

He would have time to mull it over later. He still had to escape the prison proper, and the guard was right in front of him now. It was time to act.

There was no one in the hallway that Daud could see, so he took his chances and pounced. Wrapped one arm around his neck, the other around his midsection, and pulled him back as he choked him out. The guard thrashed and fought, and if he was just up against Daud, he might have been a challenge.

But Daud had magic on his side. He was stronger now, faster. More alert. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know _why_. But he knew he shouldn’t question it.

The guard shudders, and Daud knows he’s unconscious. For now. No telling how long that would last. But Daud doesn’t release his grip. Not as the guard begins convulsing. Not as the choking sounds pewter out. It’s only when the guard is completely blue that Daud releases his grip.

The other inmates of Death Row have noticed him, and most are standing up, quietly cheering him on as Daud raids the guard’s supplies. Keys, keys were good. Daud takes his sword, and the pistol with a measly two bullets loaded. His cuffs come off, and Daud shoves the pistol in the waistband of his pants.

“Hey man, let us out too,” One prisoner says, gripping the bars. “I only got a few days left. Even if they just drag me back in here, at least I’ll be able to make them pay.”

The others chime in agreement, and Daud considers. When he met Billie, he was a thief. He thrived on stealth, lived in the shadows. Most of his targets were never aware of his presence, and Daud liked it that way. It was less complicated.

But he hadn’t snuck around like a mouse in a decade. He hadn’t needed to. He’s out of practice, low on stamina, and, as much as he hates to admit it, he’s older now. He couldn’t count on the Mark to outweigh all those factors. Not with so much at stake.

A wave of inmates escaping Death Row would attract attention, of course. But it didn’t have to be attention to him.

He begins unlocking doors.

The prisoners nod in thanks, and one distributes shivs they had managed to either make or smuggle in. Another rocks on the balls of his feet, staring daggers at the empty hallway.

“I’m gonna kill them all.”  

“Same, man. Gonna make ‘em suffer for it, nice and slow.”

“Are you two crazy?” Another inmate stares at them, shaking his head. “This is our chance to get outta here! Don’t you want to be free?”

“Free to die of the plague, or get eaten alive by rats?” He sniffs. “No thanks. I’d rather have a soldier’s death.”

The inmate shakes his head and turns away. “My wife and son are still out there. Fled to her mom’s, in Cullero, when this all started. There’s gotta be some way to break through quarantine. I need to see them again.”

When no one is looking, Daud moves to the pipes that run across the ceilings. He can’t feel guilt for using these men as a distraction, practically as bait. He can’t. He doesn’t have it in him.

“Man, you got a point. I have a daughter. My girl and my parents were all gone with the first wave of plague. Little girl just has me. I could find her. Get her out of this damn city.”

“I’ll help you find her, when we’re out. Then you can come with us to Cullero. ‘Long as you don’t mind helping out with picking grapes.” He turns his head. “Alice, don’t you have a kid brother?”

The only female prisoner on Death Row spits. “Yeah. I ought to find him too. Guess it’ll be a party.”

Daud surveys the hallway in front of him, keeping half an ear trained on the other prisoners. It would be a straight shot to the interrogation room, but then he’d either have to cross the prison yard or go around, through the other cell blocks. His new transversing power would make it easier, but…

“Well, I’m going to knock some skulls. Let out some of these other turds. We can take back Coldridge.”

“You know what, fine. Just don’t bring the fight to us. We’re not wasting our lives on your revenge. We’re getting out.”

“How you gonna get past the gate, huh? Face it. They’ve got us trapped like rats. Only way out is through the Void.”

Taking a deep breathe, Daud clenches his left hand and _blinks_. And suddenly he’s on a pipe on the other side of the room.

He’s already crouched, but he practically has to crawl to fit between the pipe and the ceiling. For the first time in his life, Daud is thankful he’s short. This would have been torture if he was any taller.

The interrogation room is right ahead of him, but so are a few guards. Milling about, chatting. One’s wife is a laundress who’s out of work, the other just lost his mother. Daud looks around for something to distract them with. There’s a collection of empty bottles further down the corridor, waiting to be collected. If he had his crossbow, he could just shoot one and dart inside while they investigated. Now, he’d have to physically go over there.

He reaches out, intending on Blinking there and back before the guards spotted him, but his hand doesn’t quite make the right movement. He focuses on one bottle, and he feels a sort of...wind whip through his mark. And the bottle rises to meet him.

Daud yanks his hand away, pressing his other against his mouth to hide his surprise. The bottle falls from his unworldly grip and shatters, breaking two others in the process.

“What the hell?”

One of the guards runs over to investigate. The other follows, at a much more leisurely pace. “Probably just rats. Into everything, now.”

Daud swallows. Right. It’s now or never. He clenches his hand again.

He falls about five feet short of his intended goal, right in the middle of the damn hallway. Fortunately, the guards are still preoccupied with the phantom bottle-breaker. Daud scurries to the door to the interrogation room and pulls on the door.

Locked. He curses. Why would it be locked? Of course it would be locked. This was a prison.

Daud grabs the key ring he lifted off the officer he strangled, praying one of them was for the right door. His hands are shaking, bad enough that he should have trouble getting the keys in the door, but he doesn’t. The lock turns on the fourth key he tries, and Daud slips inside before the guards notice anything.

He wants to breathe, feel the relief, but that’s not what wells up when he’s inside this room. Ignoring the way his heart pounds, Daud drops to his knees and begins looking under tables.

He checks every table twice before panic truly starts to well up. They forgot to plant the explosives. Or they couldn’t. Or maybe the damn note was from the guards, trying to catch him in the act of escaping.

No. He can’t think like this. Thomas needs him. Daud closes his eyes and allows himself five seconds. He breathes. And then he opens his eyes.

Everything is...black. But not dark. He can see perfectly, can see better. He can see shapes through the surfaces, see the movement beyond the walls.

An oddly shaped bottle catches his attention. Daud blinks, and the dark vision is gone when he opens his eyes again. He waves his hand in front of his face, but he can’t see through it anymore.

Shaking his head, Daud drops to his belly and wedges himself under the table. He pulls out a fat bottle with the word ‘astrolite’ written on the side, which sounds vaguely more like explosives to Daud than anything else in this room he’s found so far. There’s also a wire and a clock attached to it, further supporting the theory that this was, in fact, a bomb.

Daud does a quick check over the room for anything that could be of use to him, but comes up lacking. If he had pockets, he could justify nabbing a few tools and such, but he doesn’t. He ends up shoving a vial of elixir into his waistband and and setting off with his new explosive toy in hand.

He can’t figure out how to reactivate his strange vision power, but the guards that were outside previously had disappeared. Daud notices that Death Row is completely empty now. He tries not to think about it too much, and Blinks to a window overlooking the prison yard.

There were four guards in the yard, each one staying within at least one other’s line of sight. It would be a nightmare to cross, for an ordinary man. Daud is learning that he is far, far from ordinary. He Blinks to the top of the watchtower, taking extra care not to upset his bottle of exploding death. If he can just control his own damn powers, he’ll be able to escape undetected. He Blinks to the other side of the yard, through a window, and he’s home free.

Or not. There’s no high ground he can Blink to in the direction he’s going. There’s a space above the main door that he can use to get over without drawing attention, but it’s too far to Blink over from where he stands. He’ll need to use the floor.

Daud Blinks down, and immediately feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He’s exhausted. A different kind of exhaustion than he’s used to. He needs a moment to breathe. To regain his energy.

He hears guards chattering, footsteps coming his way. Daud curses and makes for the door to the control station.

Inside, he ducks underneath the counter and prays they don’t come in. He could always throw his astrolite at them, shoot it if it refuses to explode right away. But then he’d be sort of fucked.

“-fucking many rich folk, coming out to see the Royal Protector get strung up?” One of the guards says. Another hacks and spits before responding.

“Yeah, it’s fine entertainment for the wealthy and powerful.” He sounds young, maybe as young as Thomas. “Revenge for killing one of their own. Made them feel vulnerable.”

“The Empress wasn’t one of their own.” A third guard says. “Don’t you remember all the scandal when she was declared heir?” A grumble. “Guess you were too young. She wasn’t raised in nobility. She was a damn mudlark before she sat her skinny ass on the throne.”

No, she wasn’t. Daud had ensured that hadn’t happened. He made sure she didn’t have to resort to that. He tightens his grip on his blade.

“What, you glad to see her gone?”

“Oh, don’t be saying that. Some people didn’t, but I really liked the Empress. She was a smart girl. Good heart. Gone too soon.”

“Damn Daud.” The youngest chirps in.

Daud is fairly certain they aren’t coming into the control booth, but he starts rifling through drawers just in case. He finds enough bullets to fully load his pistol, thank the Void.

“What I just don’t understand,” The first guard chimes in. “The guy knew her since she was practically a babe. How can you hurt someone like that?”

“Who knows? They say he hasn’t said a damn word since he killed her.”

“Guilt’s probably eating him up. Or maybe he’s hiding something. Stayin’ quiet so he doesn’t let anything slip.”

“I’ll tell you something.” The first guard sounds despondent, almost sad. Daud can hear him blowing smoke from something tobacco-related. “Marcus and I, we got three daughters between the two of us. Camilla and Tillie ain’t mine by blood, but I been with their father a good decade now. I’ve watched ‘em grow up. I’ve got no less love for them than my Meg.”

“You wouldn’t hurt them.” A guard sympathizes.

“Couldn’t imagine even laying a hand on any one of them. Outsider himself couldn’t possess me to do what Daud did to that poor girl. Just no damn way.”

There’s copper wiring, and a jar of refined whale oil too. Useful stuff. But again, pockets. Daud is starting to empathize with Billie’s complaints. He finds a stun mine, of all damn things, and he turns it over in his hands. There’s bound to be guards at the gate. He could use this to knock them out. Quiet. Without bloodshed.

There’s a scuffle. Then a yell. And Daud knows the other prisoners on Death Row have made their rounds.

A full-fledged riot will break out, Daud has no doubt. A few were planning to free the other prisoners before they left. If they’ve done that, things will get bloody. The inmates might very well take over the prison.

The group of guards outside his door get up to investigate. Daud knows he should let them. Isn’t this why he freed the others? This is his distraction. His chance to slip away without detection.

They’d get killed if they went to confront the inmates.

Not his damn problem. He didn’t have time to waste on these guys. Thomas was his priority. Had to be his only priority.

One of them was a dad with three little girls. One liked Billie. One was just too damn young to be here.

Quickly, so he can’t dwell on it too much, Daud activates the stun mine. He opens the door and slides the mine across the floor, coming to rest at one guard’s boot.

There’s a zap, and all three guards fall to the floor. Completely unconscious.

Daud hauls their bodies into the control station and stashes them under the same counter where he had been hiding. Hopefully they’ll wake up after the fight is over and order had been restored. Or at least have the brains to get the hell out if everything’s gone to shit. Daud barricades the door and sneaks out through the window.

He climbs over the door easy enough, ignoring the sounds of the brewing riot behind him. The main gate is just ahead. Thirty feet, if even.

Two guards are patrolling the entryway.

They can’t hear the commotion from here, and Daud can’t count on the riot lasting long enough for them to take notice. Does he have the strength to knock them out? He doesn’t think he can choke out another person without his arm muscles giving out. He might only put them out for a few seconds. He might lose his grip. They might be able to fight back.

Daud does not have it in him to fight right now. Even with the Outsider’s magic flowing through his veins, he’s weak with hunger. He’s tired. And the fifteen minutes or so of crouching he’s been doing has been the most exercise he’s gotten in months.

He will lose. He will die. Daud _cannot_ die.

One of the guards passes right in front of Daud’s perch. The other is turned away. Daud steps into the air.

The guard stares at him in surprise as he’s forced to the ground, one hand over his mouth. Daud’s done this before, knows exactly how to land to not make a sound. How to take them by surprise. How to shove his sword through their chin and kill them fast.

He doesn’t even get blood on his hands. The kill was clean. Silent. The blood on his blade mocks it.

Daud creeps up behind the other guard and has his throat slit before he can even turn his head. He vaults over the railing, positioning his bottle of astrolite and rigging it to explode.

There’s no good cover in the room, and Daud doesn’t want to return to his perch in case the force sends him flying back. So he just retreats to the farthest corner of the room, slaps his hands over his ears, and waits.

The explosion rattles his teeth. Alarms start blaring immediately. There’s yelling from the other side of the canal, and the drawbridge starts retreating.

Fine with Daud. He hadn’t counted on the bridge. He runs, ignoring the gunshots that are surely aimed at him. He doesn’t slow down as he nears the edge. He doesn’t stop to ponder the fall. He just runs until he’s out of ground, and then he’s falling.

More gunshots. Panicked voices, disbelief coloring their words. Daud seems able to take it all in, notice everything and understand it all in that moment. As he falls from Coldridge Prison.

And then he’s in the water. It’s cold, biting cold, the kind of cold that feels sharp upon contact. Daud barely notices. He swims until he hits concrete.

There’s the sound of bullets on water, but Daud is practically right under the watchtower now. They can’t even see him. He doesn’t give Coldridge a last look as he makes for the sewer entrance.

 

* * *

 

  
It’s been more than a decade since Daud last had to trudge through the sewers. Not since Billie came into his life. Saved him, in more ways than one. The smell has somehow gotten worse.

He’d think it was just time dulling the memory, but he knows for a fact there weren’t corpses scattered about back then. The occasional dead squatter, sure. But nothing like this.

Daud didn’t know if he was under the impression that the plague was waning, but he hadn't expected what he was seeing. Bodies with bloody eyes and torn clothing. Bodies wrapped in shrouds and piled high. Bodies just dumped wherever there was room.

This hadn’t happened under Billie. They couldn’t give every plague victim a full service, of course, both because of the time and resources it would involve and the need to dispose of the bodies quickly. Not to mention their cemeteries weren’t meant to handle so many dead at once. She had given the okay to utilize mass graves in a few designated areas, with the intention of building memorials over the land after the plague was cured.

The Lady Regent, however, didn’t seem to see it the same way. Daud just shook his head. Allowing the people to dispose of the bodies wherever they wanted would only contribute to the spread of the plague. Thomas had emphasized that quite a few times when they were first planning out where they were going to put the graves. There needed to be a buffer zone between them and the living. This was when the death toll had only hit a hundred thousand. It had tripled by the time Daud had left for the other Isles, but they had planned for many more deaths. And the same rules would still apply. The rats wouldn’t care how many were dead, the plague wouldn’t care how difficult it was to move the bodies. Delilah probably wasn’t listening.

Daud has to keep moving.

He pulls his shirt up over his nose, trying to cover the stench, though his own smell isn’t much better. If Billie could see him now, she’d tease him. For getting too used to palace life. For getting soft. Can’t even handle the smell of the sewer. Maybe she’s laughing at him right now, from the Void.

A locked gate. Daud looks around for another way around, something to use as a pick, anything. A glitter catches his eye, and Daud finds a piece of paper attached to a post with a golden key hanging by its nail.

 _Daud-_  
_If you’ve come this far, then our plan has succeeded and you’ve escaped Coldridge. Well done._  
_Like we said in our last note, we are a group loyal to Empress Billie Lurk, and reject Delilah Kaldwin’s rule. We aim to clear your name, find the Empress’s brother and put him in his rightful place on the throne._  
_When you take this passage, you will come out to an open-air cistern where several tunnels join up. Take the west tunnel. Our friend will meet you where it lets out, and she will take you to us. We look forward to meeting you._

Find Thomas. Clear Daud’s name. Perfect.

Daud unlocks the gate and runs along the narrow passageway. He’s careful to stay light on his feet to avoid attracting any attention-not that there’s much down in the sewers, but sound could very well carry above to the streets. He spies a few rat swarms and steers clear, both because he knows they can literally eat him alive and because he doesn’t know if his Mark will protect him from the plague. He’s heard, through the Abbey’s ramblings, of the Mark giving its users a resistance to poison, so he assumes it would. But best not to test that now, when he still has so much to do.

He’s still tired, drained from so much magic use, so he uses his new powers sparingly. The metal grates and dirt walkways covered with moss are starting to look like a good spot for a nap. Daud resists the urge to sit down, to rest. He needed to keep moving, knowing it would be harder to get back up again than if he just went on.

Daud can hear the river when the voices of several guards echo off the walls. Daud curses and pulls himself on top of a pipe.

“He should come this way. Either here or he took a turn at Bowling.”

“Rupaul’s boys are set up over there; one of us will nab him.”

Daud stays crouching, sneaking forward with his hand on his sword and pistol out. Just in case.

Two of the guards are in view now. One spits, and uses his shoe to grind it into the dirt. “Can’t wait to make him pay. My brother was stationed at Coldridge today. I still don’t know if he’s alright.”

“We won’t know shit until the riot dies down. Just that a lot of people are dead.”

“I guess after you’ve killed an Empress, a few guards don’t matter.” The guard twists around and starts yelling to someone outside Daud’s field of view. “You see him, call us over right away!”

“And let you take the glory? Fuck you, I’ll bring his head back myself!” An unseen voice calls back.

“It’s your funeral!”

“You really afraid of him?” Another guard rounds the corner, his voice different from the one just speaking. “He’s just some Serkonan street dog. Heard his father was a pirate and his mother was a whore.”

Daud’s hand tightens around his sword. There’s no question now.

“You think you’ll be less dead when he finds you ‘cause his blood ain’t noble? Have you _seen_ him fight? He’s faster than shit, and quiet too. You won’t have time to fight back before your throat is slit.”

“Well, what happens if he shows up and you’re not around?”

“Then try to make a lot of noise as you die.”

The guard turns away, leaving the other to curse under his breath. Daud unsheathes his blade.

It’s easy, easier than Daud even remembers. Land on one guy’s back and force him to the ground, pull him back by his hair and insert his sword through the guard's chin. The other guard doesn’t even pause in his steps, making it easy for Daud to creep up on him. He shoves his sword through the man’s back, pulling it free and walking away without a glance.

Two more guards. One’s walked away to relieve himself. Daud gets behind his partner and kicks out his knee, turns the guard around and plants his sword in his heart before he even has time to open his mouth. He walks right up to the other one, waits for him to zip his pants then grabs him by the shoulder, whips him around and has his sword through his chest.

It all feels much easier than it really should.

Daud still doesn’t have pockets, so he resists the old urge to loot the bodies. He puts his sword back in it’s sheath and moves on, trying not to dwell too much on things.

He gets to the exchange. Rats swarm the ground, thankfully a good five feet or so down from where Daud is standing, feasting on corpses. There’s a pile of plague dead in the middle of the room, blood staining the concrete.

Daud surveys the room. The note said to take the west tunnel, but now that he’s here he can’t help but notice that none of the tunnels were labeled. And he had no fucking clue which way was west.

He wants to get down on the floor and groan. Of all damn things to lay him up, not knowing his directions was what did him in. Of course.

No. He just had to think. The sun rose in the east, right? He could just look to the sun for the answer. But of course, he looks up at the sun is right overhead. It’s noon. Of course it is.

He _could_ sit here and wait an hour or so, just long enough for the sun to move. And then he's had to take the tunnel in...that direction? A compass. He needed to remember what a compass looked like. It was the damn symbol of the Isles, and he’s been guarding the ruler of the Empire for a decade, so he of all people should remember what one looks like.

This entire problem could have been avoided if they'd given him a damn compass.

Daud slumps to the floor and puts his head in his hands. What else was the world going to throw at him? More puzzles he had to solve? More people he would have to kill? How was he going to do this? He was so very, very tired.

The guards would catch him, or the rats would eat him. He’d die here.

Thomas would be left alone. Waiting for no one. Stuck with Delilah for the rest of his life.

Daud rubs the skin on his face, then pushes himself up.

Right. He needed to think back to Coldridge. The prison’s drawbridge connected it to Dunwall Tower property. He’s gone between the two buildings a thousand times. He can visualize it on the map of Dunwall that hangs in Billie’s study, and knows that the Tower is north of the prison. He didn’t cross the bridge, but the entrance to the sewers was right below it.

There had been a few twists, but Daud doesn’t think he’s made any full 45-degree turns. (and if he had, he’s hopelessly lost because he’ll never untangle that path) He has to assume he’s been traveling north this entire time.

That would mean...he doesn’t fucking know. He’s not a sailor. He can’t be fucked to remember directions.

A compass. The symbol of the Empire, just with the names of the islands instead of directions. It was stamped on practically every piece of paper Daud has had shoved in front of his face for the last eleven years or so. It was on Billie’s throne. On her necklace. She wore that necklace all the damn time, if he can just visualize it, if he can just remember…

If he’s facing north, and needs to go west, he’d need to take a left.

Daud turns to the left tunnel.

It’s closed, but there’s a crank wheel right next to it. Right where a swarm of rats milled about.

These people better have a damn good idea where Thomas is.

Daud Blinks to the center of the cistern, where the mountain of corpses lay. He grabs two right away and throws them off, watches the rats swarm around them. He heaves another over his shoulder and Blinks to the crank wheel, turning and shoving the body away from him to attract any rats that might still consider him a tasty meal.

Gritting his teeth, Daud turns the wheel. It gives, little by little, accompanied by a grinding noise that could wake the horde of dead behind him. The door is heavier than fuck, but Daud has stubbornness on his side.

He feels something furry at his feet. Daud cranks harder. Then there’s little teeth, nibbling on his heel. Little paws at his pants. The rats have found him.

There’s enough space for Daud to slip under the door. He abandons the crank wheel, shakes the rats off as he runs and Blinks right before going into a slide.

He slides under the door with hardly a second to spare. The door slams down behind him.

Daud lays in the mud for a moment, on his back, peering up at the mossy ceiling. Then he gets back up.

He smells the river before he sees it. All dead fish and shit, some oils and whatever else the factories dump in. The sight of the soft waves and murky water is still a welcome one, accompanied by the sun glinting off the surface.

Daud stands there for a minute, his bare feet sinking into the wet sand. The heat of the sun of his face, and the breeze on his skin.

He’s free.

“Hey. Hey, Daud, is that you?”

Daud looks around, but sees no one. He wonders if maybe he was hearing things when the whispering starts up again.

“Over here. I’m a friend!”

A woman steps out of the bushes, motioning him to follow her. Normally Daud wouldn’t trust strange women hiding in foliage, but it’s been a very, very weird day.

Daud rounds the bush, where the woman is waiting next to a skiff. Her dark hair is shaved off on one side of her head, and the surviving strands of hair are pushed behind her right ear. She holds out her hand. “Daud. Now that I see you up close, there’s no mistaking it.” Daud tentatively takes her hand, which makes her grin, showing off a mouthful of half-rotten, half gold-capped teeth. “I’m Elizabeth Stride. But you’ll call me Lizzy if you want to keep your tongue.”

Elizabeth Stride. That name sounds familiar to Daud, though he can’t place it. He drops her hand, and Lizzy’s face goes pale. “Oh, fuck. They cut your tongue out, didn’t they?”

Daud maintains eye contact and spits blood onto the sand. “No.”

“Oh. Good. Wouldn’t want us to start off on the wrong foot. Because I had it in my mouth.”

Lizzy turns to her skiff, small and rusted in places with _Melusine_ written across the side. “There’s a group of people who want to meet you. I can take you to them, if you’re ready.”

Daud looks out at the water. He has no idea where he is, where he should go. Doesn’t know where to begin looking for Thomas. He can’t even see the Tower from here. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

 

* * *

 

  
Elizabeth Stride, Daud found out, was in the Navy. Women weren’t uncommon Dunwall’s military structure, though they were usually relegated to nurses and record keepers. By title, anyway. Daud knows that plenty of women fight without the recognition or protection their male cohorts enjoy, all off the books. He knows it’s different in Serkonos and Morley, but Gristol is still seeped in sexism.

Not that that impeded one Elizabeth Stride. She was a soldier. Would have been a captain, if it weren’t for what she had between her legs.

“Captain Edgar Wakefield is my best friend,” she told him, as she steered the skiff between rocks and floating bodies. “We worked together on just about everything, but because he has a dick he ended up getting credit for everything I accomplished too. Bull-fucking-shit, if you ask me.”

“Complete,” Daud agrees, staring at his reflection in the water.

Lizzy scoffs and turns back to the water.

Elizabeth was an accomplished member of the Navy who was biding her time, trying to prove herself before the push for equality that she was sure was right around the corner, when she could strike out and finally receive the recognition she rightfully deserved. That was, until Billie was killed.

She hated Delilah. She was, in Lizzy’s words, a prissy bitch who thought she was a god and wouldn’t know a good idea if it came up and jumped down her throat. Her words, not Daud's.

So, Officer Elizabeth Stride took her dishonorable discharge and walked, throwing the middle finger up at her superiors that chose to stay and sail under Delilah Kaldwin. And Lizzy strode out of Dunwall Tower and right into a conspiracy to take down their new, esteemed Lady Regent.

“I’m not going to fucking lie to you, Daud.” Lizzy says as they near their destination. “I’m not going to say I loved the Empress or anything. I didn’t really care who sat on the throne. I didn’t think it mattered.” She slams her hand down on the wheel. “But that was before Lady Fuckwin showed up. And everything’s gone to shit in just a few months with her. A bad leader makes a hell of a difference.”

“Appreciate Billie more?” It hurts Daud to talk, but he ignores the pain. Nobody had ever seemed to understand how tough Billie’s job really was. She could never please her people. She had stopped caring so much about her approval ratings, in the last few years of her life, but Daud could tell it still bothered her.

But Lizzy just shrugs. “I told you, I didn’t really care one way or another when she was on the throne. But I guess that’s the mark of a good leader, when your people can afford to not care. Sucks, but that’s probably the best you can hope for.”

Daud leans back. He’s not happy. But he can’t argue with that.

“But if Thomas is anything like Billie,” Lizzie continues. “If you raised him like you did her, I think he’ll do just fine. Anything’s better than this.” She grumbles, almost under her breath.

Daud doesn’t want ‘fine’. He wants Thomas to be popular. He wanted Billie to be loved, for people to recognize the sacrifices she made for them.

All he ever wanted was a better life for them.

“So where are we?” Daud asks as Lizzy starts turning the skiff to shore. “Draper’s Ward?”

“Better believe it, baby.” Lizzy flashes him a grin over her shoulder.

“Are we going shopping? Why the fuck?”

Lizzy rolls her eyes and cranks some lever-Daud doesn’t know shit about boats. “Guess you wouldn’t of heard. Draper’s Ward fell to plague, just a few months back. All the shops closed. Most of the owners are dead or packed up and left while they still had the sense to. Now it’s just gang territory.”

Daud grimaces. “The conspiracy team is a gang.”

“Oh, fuck off. We got a real good team assembled, and yeah, some of them were gangsters.” She cranks the lever back again. “A bunch of us who jumped ship with the Navy got together and formed the Dead Eels, but we’re mostly scattered now.”

“Short-lived.”

“You said it. It was nice for a couple months, but then Overseers fucking stormed us and killed half my men. The other half up and left after that, so me and Edgar joined up with this outfit.”

Daud looks up at the colorful, happy signs and billboards that surround Draper’s Ward. “The Hatters are based here.”

Lizzy waves her hand. “Their leader died not too long ago. They’ve fallen apart. Now it’s just a few different groups on the fringe, fighting each other. They won’t bother us none.”

She steers them towards a metal gate. Daud almost wants to warn her that she’s going to crash, but he refrains, and at the last second Lizzy pushes aside some reeds to reveal an opening in the gate.

A hidden door into the canal. “Smart.” Daud notes. Lizzy nods.

“Yeah, but the canal water isn’t flowing anymore. It’s bound to dry up. If that happens, we’ll have to park it and hike a mile or so.”

She guides them through the canal, her skiff cutting through the green water and leaving loud ripples behind. Daud stares up at the algae covered walls and tries to rectify this place with the Draper’s Ward he once knew. He hadn’t been there a lot-Billie and Thomas didn’t really enjoy shopping. They had personal tailors and servants that did their shopping for them, so there was rarely a reason to go other than pleasure. He’s chaperoned maybe a handful of outings, came here a few times for birthday presents and the like. Draper’s Ward wasn’t a place he was familiar with.

If he hadn’t seen the sign announcing the district for what it was, Daud might have never recognized it. Draper’s Ward is silent. Still as the water in the canal.

Lizzy brings the skiff to a stop right in front of the indoor plaza. “We’ve sectioned off the mall for our own use, and most of us are based out of the old textile mill now.” She gets up and jumps up onto the pavement. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

Daud pulls himself up and forces himself not to hurry after Lizzy. “Mill owners dead too?”

Lizzy doesn’t bother turning around. “Mill’s mine. My father left it to me.”

Well, there was apparently room for more surprises today.

Daud skips steps to keep up with Lizzy, holding in the urge to Blink. It was probably a good idea to wait on revealing his arcane powers, just in care there was an Overseer-wannabe in the crowd. That, and he still felt drained.

Lizzy presses a button, tapping her foot as she waits. Daud catches up to her and gives her the side-eye when the intercom crackles to life. “What’s the password?”

It’s a child’s voice, a boy’s. Lizzy rolls her eyes. “It’s me. Let me in.”

“What’s the password?” The voices repeats.

Lizzy pressed the intercom button a little more forcefully. “Reed, it’s fucking Lizzy. You know it’s me. Open the damn door.”

“Zhukov said not to let anyone in without the password!”

“Zhukov doesn’t own the damn building! I do! Now let us in, I have Daud with me!”

There’s a silence on the other end. Daud wonders if the boy has run off to this ‘Zhukov’ when Lizzy punches the door. “Outsider’s balls, it’s _whalebone_. Fine? Open the fucking door.”

She aggressively releases the button, and there’s a three second pause before Daud hears the clicking of the lock turning.

He turns his head. “You could have just...given him the password.” He mutters.

Lizzy scoffs. “That’s not...it’s the _principle_ of things.”

The door opens, revealing a boy about ten. He’s wearing a man’s shirt he practically swims in and a tophat Daud thinks looks ridiculous. Both Daud and Lizzy tower over him.

“Daud, this is Reed. One of the servants here.” She fixes a glare at him. “Actually, his sister is the one who works here. Reed’s a kid.”

Reed looks down at the ground. “I’m old enough to have a job. My sister’s not that much older than me.”

“Yeah, but she knows how to follow orders.” Lizzy pinches his cheek as she passes him by, leaving behind a red mark. “Oh, don’t be so serious. Hey, this is Daud. The guy whose ass I had to go pick up.”

“I know who you are,” Reed mumbles, and thrusts out his hand in Daud’s direction without ever looking up from the ground. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Daud. Mr. Royal Protector, sir.”

Daud takes his hand. “Likewise, Mr. Reed.”

Reed peeks up through his eyelashes, a small smile playing on his lips. Lizzy grabs hold of Daud’s arm. “Well, we have to hit up the rest of these assholes before Daud drops of exhaustion. You go back to cleaning dirt, or whatever it is you do.”

“I was sweeping!” Reed picks up the broom he had set against the wall.

Daud leans in as soon as Reed is out of earshot. “He always like that?” He whispers.

Lizzy nods, rolling her eyes. “He’s a weird fucking kid. Not bad weird, there’s just something... _off_ about him, you know? We probably wouldn’t have taken him on if his sister hadn’t insisted he come with her.”

“Who?”

“Rose. She’s a bit odd too, but you can’t be too choosy when it comes to jobs like this.” Lizzy shrugs. “You’ll meet her soon enough. I’ll introduce you to the bigwigs, then you can go say hi to the crew. We got some interesting characters here.”

“Joy.”

Lizzy grins. “Hey, it beats rotting away in Coldridge.”

Daud certainly can’t argue with that.

They’ve blocked off the street the mill sits on-now, the only way to enter is through the derelict mall. Good for staying hidden. Bad if they need to evacuate.

If they were going to keep Thomas here, Daud and whoever was it was in charge were going to need to have some words about security.

“S’where Edgar and I sleep,” Lizzy says as they make their way down slimy steps, pointing out a crumbling building that was probably once a guard house. “We got some good liquor and a deck of cards, if you want to have some fun some night.”

“I’m not a big drinker.” That’s an understatement. The last time Daud drank was at Billie’s coronation, both because people expected him to drink and because he was just coming to terms with the entire situation. There was the time that she and Thomas secretly spiked his drink at some fancy luncheon, but that didn’t count.

Lizzy shrugs and turns back. “Your loss. You can still play Bridge with us, ‘long as you leave your sour attitude at the door.”

At that, Daud pushes her off the last step.

At first, the mill seems the same type of eerie as the rest of Draper’s Ward. Walkways and footbridges meant for many now empty, places meant for industrial and commercial use now serving something else. The quiet where he should have heard machines going, the din of dozens of workers at the job. The water wheel gone still.

But there’s subtle signs of life here. Fresh footprints in the dirt. The dead leaves swept back from the walkway. If he craned his neck, he could see laundry hung out to dry down the side of the building.

“Everyone’s probably upstairs.” Lizzy notes as they pass through the wide docking station. “They’ll have a hot meal ready for you. Well, maybe not ready, but they’ll heat it up once we get up there.”

Something hot would sound heavenly, but Daud hasn’t really tasted his food in months. Still, he’s probably only on his feet through a mixture of adrenaline and black magic. He needs to eat.

“-and _if_ he manages to find Lizzy, and she hasn’t gotten herself killed already.” A cool female voice sputters out as they ascend the steps. “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’, Edgar.”

“Well, _if_ anyone can do it, Daud’s our man,” a deep-throated man replies. “I’ve seen him spar. And he’s always had this sort of...determination to him. Like he could do anything if he set his mind to it.”

“Except protect the Empress,” The voice says detachedly.

Daud stops dead on the steps. Lizzy doesn’t look back.

“If an assassin made it past Daud, nothing was going to save her.” The man sighs. “He’ll be here soon, if he gets here at all. I hope he does.”

“I do as well. I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

“Well, your wait is over!” Lizzy jumps up onto the last step and strides out of Daud’s view. He hurries up the last of the steps.

“Lizzy! You’re alive!”

“Lady and Gentlesir, may I present to you-” Lizzy, ignoring her friend, steps to the side and motions to Daud in an absolutely ridiculous manner, complete with an exaggerated bow. “Lord Daud, the Royal Protector!”

There’s one set of unimpressed clapping, and Daud makes a mental note to strangle Lizzy later.

A woman approaches him from across the room, wearing a fancy purple pantsuit and wrist-length white gloves. Her hair is not entirely unlike how Billie often wore hers, though Billie’s hair was usually pulled farther to the back to keep it out of her face.

“Daud. It is an absolute pleasure to meet you.” Her nose is oddly crooked, as if it had been violently broken at some point and was never set. She holds out her hand. “Thalia Timsh.”

He’s never heard of her. Daud takes her hand, unsure under these circumstances if he’s supposed to kiss it or shake it. Now that he looks down and sees his calloused, filthy hands against Thalia’s pristine gloves, he just feels out of place. He drops his hand.

If Thalia minds his filthiness, she doesn’t mention it. Instead she just clasps her hands behind her back and stands tall. “You must be famished. I’ll have my manservant prepare you something.”

Daud’s thank-you is stuck to the roof of his mouth, so he just stands there and watches her walk away.

“Nice to finally meet you, bodyguard.” A bear of a man having seemingly burst from the confines of his shirt sleeves comes barreling over, picking up Daud’s hand from his side and shaking it vigorously. “Edgar Wakefield. I’ve met with the Empress before, but you were busy doing protecting things.”

“Yes, that...was my job.” Daud is unsure what to say.

Edgar steps back and turns to Lizzy, grabbing her around the waist and lifting her up. “You did it, Liz! You got our ace in the hole!”

“Did you really fucking doubt me?” Lizzy spits, but she smiles and pats Edgar’s back as he sets her down. “Yeah, yeah, enough with that. Let’s get business out of the way so we can throw Daud in the bathtub.”

Normally, Daud would have something snarky to say back, but he’s becoming aware of his own smell. Everyone is too polite to say anything, but he doubts anyone’s breathing through their noses.

“Right, right. Just step this way, Royal Protector.” Edgar attempts to straighten up, motioning for Daud to follow him.

Most of the machinery on the factory floor has been dismantled and pulled away-to where, Daud doesn’t know. Tables of varying sizes take their place, scattered with papers and books and random trinkets. Chairs pushed haphazardly wherever there’s room.

Daud takes a seat near the end of the longest table. The others fill in around him-Lizzy to his left, Edgar across from her. Thalia comes back and seats herself at the head of the table. “That’s Gerald, over there.” She motions to a makeshift kitchen behind a countertop, where a man in a tailcoat is working over a stove. Gerald turns and bows deeply before resuming his work. “He’s my butler, but he’ll serve anyone here with grace. If you need anything to eat, he’d be happy to prepare it for you.”

Judging by his sour face, Daud doesn’t think Gerald is happy to do much of anything, but he keeps that to himself. “Thank you.”

Satisfied, Thalia turns to Edgar. “I sent Paul to gather the others. They should be here shortly.”

“Excellent.” Edgar slaps his hands on the table, causing it to shake. “We can finally get down to business. It’s about damn time.”

Thalia has her hand on her heart, seemingly startled by Edgar’s display, but she recovers soon enough. “Yes, well, we’ll have to track down Zhukov to officially begin briefing Daud. He has details we’re not privy to, and nobody’s seen him all morning.”

“Daud needs to rest before we do anything,” Lizzy cuts in. “I’m surprised the old man hasn’t dropped to the floor already.”

“Really? Old man?” Daud’s barely offended. But it feels normal, familiar, to bite back.

Wakefield laughs. “You’re old enough to be our dad, Daud.”

“A scary thought,” Daud responds. Lizzy scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“You’re telling me.”

A door at the corner of the room bursts open, and Daud jumps in his seat, head on a pivot trying to locate the source of the noise. When his eyes settle on it, however, he relaxes.

“Daud!”

Galia Fleet, an Officer of the City Watch, bounds forward. Daud gets to his feet to greet her, holding his hand out, but she bypasses it and throws her arms around him instead.

Daud makes a sound of surprise and barely reigns in the instinct to push her away. Galia quickly jumps back, smoothing her shirt and looking embarrassed with herself. “Sorry, I...know you don’t like hugs. I’m just _so_ relieved to see you!”

“It’s nice to see you too, Galia.”

Daud means it. Galia was someone he appointed to her position personally, and she was good friends with Thomas. Billie hadn’t liked her, but Billie often had trouble getting along with other women, unless she was romantically attracted to them.

Galia looks perfect as always, her almost silver blonde hair cut neatly and her outfit fitting her like a glove. She’s always had a way of looking good. Daud once teased Billie that she should take fashion tips from Galia. Perhaps her dislike of Galia stemmed from that.

“I couldn’t stay at the Tower anymore,” Galia explains, her pretty face turning to distress. “Not under Kaldwin. I _knew_ you wouldn’t kill Billie, but nobody would believe me.”

“You’re lucky to still be alive.” Daud tells her. Galia nods, meekly.

“I know. I was careful about it, but it didn’t make any difference. The only people who would have believed me were the ones who already doubted you killed the Empress.”

Daud stops to ponder that. There were others? Obviously, since this conspiracy existed. But these people didn’t know him. They couldn’t know the real story. Why were they rallying behind him?

People who knew him, who saw him interact with Billie, they were quick to believe he had murdered her in cold blood. For no reason.

He opens his mouth to ask Galia more, but Thalia clears her throat. “Lady Boyle has also graciously decided to join us.”

Daud quickly sits back down, Galia taking the seat to his right, as a slim, blonde woman dressed in black comes into view. She extends her hand over the table. “Lydia Boyle. You’ve met both my sisters before. It’s nice to finally meet you myself.” Daud rises slightly to shake.

“Lydia will be assuming the role of Thomas’s tutor, once his safety is secured.” Thalia says as Lydia takes the seat on the other side of Wakefield.

Daud turns to her. “Your sisters have mentioned you.” He coughs. “I didn’t know you were a teacher.”

“I’m not.” Lydia shares a small smile. “I’ve instructed my niece, who’s quite a bit younger than Thomas, but I’ve studied a wide variety of subjects extensively. I’m confident that Thomas-.”

“She’s the closest thing we could find,” Thalia says, boredly. Daud catches how Lydia’s face falls.

The table shakes once again as a tall, gangly man plops down in the chair across from Daud. His hair is a dark brown, almost black, and Daud can see tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. “And this,” Thalia says, tiredly. “Is Paul Blanchard. My bodyguard. He’s _very_ good at his job.” She adds the last part like a justification.

Paul raises his eyebrows. “Hey.” He arcs his hand through the air before meeting Daud’s. Daud shakes it, confused. “You can call me Paulie. I’ve tried convincing Tails to, but no dice.”

He’s chewing something, probably tobacco. He has a Karnacan accent, so that's pretty likely. Daud resists the urge to wrinkle his nose as he sits back. “Nice to meet you.”

Paul jerks his head up then leans back, folding one arm behind his head. “Same.”

“Well, now that everyone’s present,” Thalia says, staring down her lap, ignoring Lizzy’s protests that the servants were all absent. “I’d like to ask. Have any of you seen Zhukov?”

“He was talking to Rose out in the yard this morning.” Edgar supplies. Galia whips her head to him.

“Why would he talk to _her_?”

Edgar shrugs. “I dunno, asking about laundry soap? I don’t know what goes on in his head. But he left the building after that. Haven’t seen him since.”

“Little Reed probably saw him go.” Lydia says as Gerald makes his way over to the table. “Servants often know the going-ons better than you’d think. Ask one of the Copper siblings, or Ricardo.”

A steaming bowl is placed down in front of Daud, and Daud doesn’t even have time to sputter out a thanks before Gerald has turned his back and returned to the kitchen. So he just picks up his fork. It’s a simple dish-rice, a few chunks of some kind of meat. Not a lot of food, but Daud’s last full meal was on a ship. He pays the contents of the dish little mind as he digs in.

“I still gotta show Daud around,” Lizzy says, putting her feet up on the table. Daud glares at her and moves his bowl farther away. “I’ll ask the sprouts where that son of a bitch said he was going.”

“Well, this was a complete waste of everyone’s time,” Thalia mutters to her lap.

Lydia Boyle gets to her feet. “Not necessarily. We got to meet Daud.” She flashes him a smile. Daud swallows and looks down at his food.

“Not like we were busy, Tails, we’ve just been sitting around with our thumbs up our asses.” Paul cuts in. Thalia looks up at him, indignant.

“I was _hoping_ Zhukov could clue us in on his grand plan, now that we’re all assembled. But I suppose we’ll just twiddle away for a bit longer, waiting for him.” She sighs dramatically.

Paul rolls his eyes. Lydia passes behind him. “Well, I’m going to retire for the evening, if you don’t mind. Call on me if Zhukov bursts in with pressing matters that can’t wait until breakfast.”

“I should probably…” Galia stands, pausing. “I should go too. There’s things Zhukov is having me work on. I need to...go.” She looks down at Daud, smiling. “I’m so happy you’re back, Daud.”

Daud chews slowly as he looks after her. Back where? This isn’t Dunwall Tower. Might as well be a world away.

“Gerald,” Thalia calls over her shoulder. “Draw a bath, would you? I’m sure Daud would like to get clean before bedding down.”

That he would, actually. Daud was almost looking forward to not smelling like a sewer rat anymore.

Gerald bows once more, then departs. Daud leans over to Lizzy. “ _Can_ he speak?”

Lizzy nods, her eyes wide with horror. “Oooooh, yeah. When he gets into it with one of the other servants, you will hear ringing in your ears for a week. He’s terrifying. I almost felt bad for Reed the other day.”

“He’s like his mistress in that regard,” Edgar whispers, leaning into the two. “Quiet, but explosive.”

Thalia turns to them and fixes all three with a glare. “Well, if no one else requires anything, I believe I will retire for the night as well.” She gets to her feet, Paul standing up a half-second after her. “If Zhukov returns by morning, we’ll converge then.”

“And if he isn’t back by then?” It’s Lizzy speaking now, as Edgar is hiding his giggles behind his hands.

“Then I will deal with him,” Thalia replies curtly. She turns her back then and flounces off, Paul following after her while making what Daud can only describe as a colloquial gesture of farewell.

The door slams behind them, and Edgar turns back to Daud and Lizzy. “She’s a bitch. No getting around that.”

“A bitch we need,” Lizzy replies. “The Timsh’s have a lot of pull in Parliament, and Thalia’s uncle is close with the Big Bitch herself. Plus she’s financing, like, this entire thing.”

“What the hell is there to finance? We’re not getting paid for this shit.”

“Living costs _money_ , Edgar. We need food, elixir, fancy murderous trinkets; Thalia’s paying for all that.”

“Murderous trinkets?” Daud says in between bites.

Edgar nods. “Hasn’t he seen the shit Jerome’s made for him yet?” He asks Lizzy.

“Not yet.” She says, annoyed. “I still need to show him where he sleeps, introduce him to the other servants. I thought he’d like to smell like a human being first.”

Daud scrapes the bottom of his bowl. Lizzy slaps Edgar’s arm and turns back to Daud.

“Go take your bath, rat-man. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zhukov isn't in this chapter purely because I hadn't read The Corroded Man at the time I wrote it. Turns out that kind of fits his bitch-ass personality pretty well.  
> The servants are all OC's. I couldn't think of anyone who I could really turn into servants and have it make sense. Most of my OC's will have little to no bearing on the plot; they're just kinda there because I didn't have people to clean. (and you know Lizzy's not gonna pick up after herself)  
> The next chapter will probably be shorter because originally I cut this chapter off after Daud climbed into Lizzy's boat. Decided it worked better this way.  
> Next up: Daud takes a bath. And there's Void nonsense going on too.


	3. Dishonored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud takes a bath and then Lizzy takes him shopping. And the Void happens too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having fun with making up alternative chapter names where I just create the worst summary possible, so I'll keep with that.  
> This is 25 pages exactly in Word, while the previous two chapters combined were 50, so it's the perfect size.

Daud nearly gets lost finding the bathroom, but he firmly refuses to double back and ask Lizzy for directions. Thankfully, Gerald is standing outside the open door, and beckons him forward.

“There is a fresh change of clothes for you on the chair, Master Daud.” Gerald’s voice low and scratchy; Daud decides he wouldn’t speak much if he sounded like that either.

Daud nods in thanks, hoping Gerald wasn’t planning to stand outside the door the entire damn time. Gerald nods back, and, thank the Void, strolls away with his nose in the air.

Daud closes the door, then leans back against it. It’s the first time he’s been truly alone in months.

It was a cruel twist of fate, that he ended up in a job that required him to be around others constantly. He hated other people. The only time he could ever truly relax was when he was completely alone.

Sighing, Daud pushes back from the door. His clothes are stuck to him with mud and dried blood, accumulated from his time in Coldridge and from his jaunt through the sewers. They hurt to peel off, but Daud grits his teeth. He throws them in a corner, thinking that they’d probably have to be burned. Those rags would never be clean again.

The scars are a sight he's not prepared for. He knew, logically, that they were there-hell, some were still healing. He could feel them. But he hadn’t been doing a lot of staring at his own naked body in the past few months. It’s jarring to see the bones in his ribs, the bruises, the burn marks on his arm.

The Mark on his hand.

Daud steps into the tub.

The water is almost too hot, and Daud is careful easing himself in. He lets out probably the most erotic moan to ever escape his lips, but he’s too caught up in the warmth to care.

He just lays back for a moment, closes his eyes. Feels the warmth spread through his body, and the Coldridge chill leaving his bones.

And he feels old. He feels the burn in his muscles, the strain in his joints. It feels like his bones are rattling, like the very innermost parts of him ache. Daud cleared forty-two in Coldridge, but he’s always been able to keep up with his job, with the younger guards, with the Empress. Now, Daud feels his age.

It was bound to happen, he knew. He’d eventually pass the point where his performance would be compromised, where he would be rendered ineffective as Royal Protector. It wasn’t a subject he liked to think about often. He didn’t want to force Billie to pick a new Protector, trust them with her life-though it seemed that fate had sorted that part out for them. Nevertheless, he had figured he wouldn’t have to worry about it for at least another decade.

But here he was. Sitting in a hot bath, thinking about how much his joints hurt. Feeling older than the stone beneath his feet.

Daud sighs and opens his eyes. The water has turned brown.

He grabs for a rag and a bar of soap, lathering up and scrubbing himself vigorously. He’s never been this filthy in his life. He doesn’t remember ever seeing anyone so filthy-though Thomas would definitely be a close runner-up. Daud had thought his hair was brown at first, it was so clumped and caked with dirt. It had probably never been washed.

Literally, the main reason he had tried to lure Thomas inside was to give the damn kid a bath. At first Daud was just trying to get a bite to eat in him, had set some food down, gave Thomas some distance while he approached and scarfed everything, maintaining eye contact with Daud all the while. He had likened Thomas to a wild animal at the time, skittish and distrusting. Unable to really understand what was going on.

Daud had propped the back door open, beckoned him in, and Thomas had inched his way into their crappy two-room apartment that wasn't even their's. Eventually. They didn’t even have a goddamn tub then; Daud just used the largest cooking pot he had scavenged at that point to bathe him. He had Billie heat pan after pan of hot water on their shitty little stove, having Thomas stand up in the freezing Dunwall cold so Daud could scrub him clean. It was an oddly fond memory of his.

Having a naked boy sitting in a cooking pot in your kitchen was a very odd thing, once you put it in so many words, and he never quite got over the moment he stood there and realized what his life had become. But it was one of the first times he looked at the two and felt something warm spread within his chest. When he felt lighter. Happy that he had done something, rather than the regret and self-loathing that usually followed most of his actions. Remembering how Billie had slid down the wall, bunching her legs up and giving Daud a tired smile as he attempted to make one of his shirts fit Thomas like a dress. She had fallen asleep right after, her skinny knees tucked up to her chest, curled up by the stove.

And then the memory hurts, and Daud coughs to rid himself of the block in his chest. It doesn’t work. He gets out of the tub.

There’s a bottle of something pink on the side of the sink and, against his better judgement, Daud picks it up. He’s always hated perfumes. He always felt like he was choking on them. Thankfully Billie didn’t like them either, though Thomas would steal hers and sometimes dab it behind his ears. Daud holds the bottle out as far as he can and sprays. He begins coughing as something floral fills his nostrils.

Well, hopefully he smells decent enough. Daud dresses, relishing the feeling of the new clothes, of actual shoes on his feet. He checks himself in the mirror. His hair is overgrown and he desperately needs to shave, but when he looks around for a razor he can’t find one. He’s not stupid enough to try shaving with a sword, not anymore, so he just straps the blade back to his hip and leaves the bathroom.

He feels almost human again. About as human as he’ll ever feel again, Daud thinks. There’s still an emptiness in him he can’t resolve.

He returns to Lizzy, who's playing some game with Edgar that seems to involve flicking bottlecaps and hitting your opponent. Daud stands there, unsure of whether this was something he should intrude on. Thankfully, Lizzy sees him standing there and pushes her chair back, getting to her feet and throwing the rest of the caps in Edgar’s face.

“Well, you’re certainly looking spiffier,” Lizzy says, coming closer. “But you can lose the blade.”

Daud glares and holds it closer. Lizzy just shrugs and turns around.

“Have it your way. Follow me, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

The mill was large, but it was not made for residential use. Still, as Lizzy pointed out, they had managed to make it work. Lydia took a room right above the main area, Thalia and her small staff in the great room on the first floor. The elusive Zhukov had a side room with his own door. Lizzy didn’t mention where Galia slept, so Daud assumed she slept there as well.

“Trimble’s apartment is over there,” Lizzy points to her right as they exit the mill. “But he’s a fucking bitch so we’re not going to visit him.”

“Trimble is…”

“A nurse. My father’s nurse, for a while.” Lizzy looks angry then, but she snaps out of it. “He’s our resident medic, so there’s some good incentive not to get shot up out in the field.”

Daud didn’t need extra incentive. The thought of a doctor poking at him made all the hairs on his neck stand up.

“Oh! There’s Ricardo!” Lizzy turns and begins waving. “Hey! Ricko! This is Daud!” She piques her arms in an awkward half circle, ending with both her hands above Daud’s head, pointing to him.

Ricardo is a langy mustached man who is currently very busy hanging laundry, who then turns and lets loose a stream of very angry sounding words at Lizzy. Daud doesn’t understand him, but he recognizes the tongue. Most of the Empire had a united language, but some more rural areas still had their own dialects. He knows the mountainous regions of Serkonos was home to a few such communities, and spoke much like Ricardo does.

“He says it’s nice to meet you,” Lizzy says while waving goodbye, turning Daud around and pushing him away. Daud scoffs.

“Sure he does.”

“Oh, he welcomed you very graciously to our abode.”

Daud wasn’t in the mood to really enjoy anyone’s company, but if he found anyone in this damn place remotely likable, it was probably Lizzy.

“Does he…?”

Lizzy waves him off. “He speaks our language just fine. He just likes fucking with us.”

The mall is the same as they left it, though now a few lamps burned low to the ground. The sun was setting, Daud notes. What should have been the last sunset of his life.

Reed is still standing in the entryway, holding a broom, though now there’s a girl a head taller than him bending over and speaking to him in a low, harsh voice Daud can’t make out.

“And this is Rose!” Lizzy announces, jumping down the last few steps while Daud follows her like a normal fucking person.

Rose has auburn dreadlocks that are mostly contained by a large bun in the back, but she still has to angrily push a few tendrils out of her face as she straightens up, her face screwed up in petulant displeasure. “My name is Lily.”

“Yeah, but we already have a Lizzy and a Lydia, and that’s just too many names that sound alike.” Lizzy bounds forward and pats her on the head, ignoring how Rose glares. “So Rose it is.”

“Why do I have to be the one who changes their name?”

“Because it sucks to be the youngest, plus you have a middle name that works just fine.” Lizzy grins as Rose pouts. “Anyway, I came over here to-”

“Daud!” Rose notices him then, snapping to attention so harshly her shoulders seem to bunch up at her ears. Her eyes are wide, almost frightful. Daud wonders for a second if he could startle all her freckles right off.

“Yep, this is Daud.” Lizzy sounds exasperated. “He’s on our side, so you don’t need to worry.”

Rose blinks, but she doesn’t relax. “I know he is,” She stammers, then turns to Daud. “I know you are. I just...I’m just happy to meet you.” She mumbles the last bit, eyes turned to the floor for a brief second before holding out her hand. In the background, Reed rolls his eyes.

Daud shakes her hand. “Lily, you said?”

She beams. “Well, you can call me Rose if you _really_ want,” She says, smiling at him so hard she might break her face.

“We better leave Rose to her mothering,” Lizzy says pulling Daud away. Rose quickly moves to straightening out her shirt, several sizes too big for her, just like her brother's.

“Don’t get me wrong, they’re good kids,” Lizzy whispers in his ear as walk. “They’re just weird.”

Daud thinks that’s a little harsh, but still, he agrees. Lily Rose. Oddly floral. Daud hated names that were words for other things. He finds it odd that Rose has a middle name-most peasants didn’t.

Hell, the really poor folk didn’t have _last_ names. Daud hadn’t. Billie had her mother’s name, but she refused to use it after she was kicked out. If Thomas had one, he didn’t remember it. Thomas adopted the Lurk name when Billie did, and Billie gave the name to Daud after she became Empress and could do that sort of thing. She had also gained a few long, stuffy middle names for herself during that time, ones Daud only used to tease her and on the few occasions where he was angry with her enough to use her full name. Which usually led to his anger dissipating as he listed off her amalgam of names and titles, ultimately dissolving into giggles on both their parts.

The memory hurts. Daud pushes it aside.

Lizzy jumps and hauls herself over the second-floor railing, and Daud stands there confused as she raps on a door. “Hey, Daud’s here! Come show him the shit you made him!”

She vaults herself back over the railing and lands cleanly on her feet. Lizzy then runs to the opposite side of the hallway without missing a beat and seizes the large, rolling metal door and pushes it up. “Hey _loser_. We’re actually going to get some use out of your toys now.”

“Daud’s here?” A faint voice came from inside. Lizzy pushes the door up farther and bades Daud to follow her.

The place is littered with crap. Wiring, sheets of metal, tools of various shapes and sizes. Daud can’t locate the source of the voice until a skinny blond man steps out of a back room, drying his hands on a rag. “Daud,” the man says. “We didn’t...I mean, I’m glad you made it to us.”

Daud knew what he was about to say. That he was surprised Daud survived. He can’t really find it in him to be offended. He predicts he’ll be surprised too, once the shock wears off.

They shake, and Lizzy hauls herself up to sit on a nearby table. “Daud, this is Jerome.” She motions, and Daud internally groans. Forget all the L names, he’s going to mix up Jerome and Gerald at some point. He just knows it. “He’s a black market dealer, and has assembled a bit of an armory for us here.”

“I could be totally legitimate,” Jerome quickly states, clearly sweating. “I mean, I could have all my papers in order if I was able to, if the offices weren’t all closed. People need weapons because of the plague, before I just sold oxrush-”

“Jerome.”

“...Yes, sir?”

“I don’t care.”

Jerome visibly relaxes, and Lizzy snickers behind her hand. “Told you, Daud was a street rat before he was all important and imperial and shit. He’s still one of us at heart.”

“Zhukov told us not to worry about laws while we’re here, that we’d all be granted a full pardon once the young lord sits on the throne,” Jerome explains. “But wouldn’t that be up to Lord Thomas? And he isn’t even here yet.”

“He will be soon,” Daud says gruffly. “And he’s not going to care either.”

As long as no one was unjustly getting hurt, Daud couldn’t imagine Thomas caring much about the crimes that would undoubtedly be committed here. They had relied heavily on the black market before Billie was considered royalty, so Thomas knew first-hand how much good it did for the people in poverty. Billie had focused more on actual injustices as a ruler instead of squabbles over paperwork and certifications, and Daud can’t imagine Thomas will be much different.

“Enough babble, show him the toys!” Lizzy claps her hands together, looking altogether too excited about murder weapons.

Jerome nods and wipes his hands on his pants. “Right, right…” He begins looking around. “I’m really not an engineer or anything, but I’ve had some help from the Dressmaker, and we’ve made some pretty cool stuff.”

“Who?” Daud asks as Jerome starts pawing through a crate. The title seems familiar, somehow.

Lizzy claps her hands again, then points to the doorway. “This guy!”

Ah. Now Daud remembers.

The Dressmaker stands at average height, but his tendency to slouch makes him appear smaller. His ears stick out from his brown hair, giving his creepily mustached face an odd shape to it.

He comes forward to shake Daud’s hand. “Lord Daud. I don’t know if you remember me…”

“I do.” He can’t remember what his actual fucking name was, though. To his knowledge, the guy never went by it. The Dressmaker’s hands are stiff, and they don’t completely wrap around Daud’s before he pulls away.

The Dressmaker nods, then continues as if Daud hadn’t said anything. “I made clothing for the young Empress and little Thomas in their youth. I haven’t worked for your family in a few years, due to my hands being what they are. But I remember them fondly.”

“Appreciate you saying that.” Daud gets out. The Dressmaker was certainly fixated on the two. Daud had gotten some uncomfortable vibes from him and refused to let them be alone with him for fittings, but nobody else ever seemed concerned.

He had also once asked for a lock of Billie’s hair. Which the Emperor actually gave him. Maybe that was something normal in Dunwall high society, but Daud had always found it creepy.

Now, Daud pushes down the urge to ask if he still had it. He’s not going to go there. And he’s not going to get stupidly sentimental.

“I like to say he’s the mind and I’m his hands,” Jerome says, pulling a few gadgets out and placing them in a row. “He’s a genius with this stuff, but even Anton Sokolov would be useless if they cut off his arms.”

“Whatever happened to old Sokolov anyway?” Lizzy asks while picking her nails. “You think Kaldwin had something to do with it?”

“What about Sokolov?” Daud turns his head. He had only met Sokolov twice-once for one of Billie’s portraits, and for one portrait of himself Billie had insisted he sit for. He was world-renown, but he usually kept himself holed up in the Academy. His inventions would stream out of the place, but Sokolov himself only ventured out when someone begged hard enough to have him paint them.

Jerome turns around. “You don’t know?”

Lizzy throws a spare screw at him. “He’s been in fucking prison the whole time, of course he doesn’t fucking know.” She turns to Daud. “Sokolov disappeared the same night the Empress died. Nobody told authorities for like, three weeks, but that’s natural philosophy nerds for you.”

“People are saying the Lady Regent abducted him,” Jerome says, his eyes wide. “And she’s making him build more of those death machines. Or she’s working him half to death on a cure.”

“Kaldwin does not give a single fuck about the plague and who dies from it. As long as she has enough elixir for herself, she couldn’t care less.” Lizzy waves her hand, dismissing Jerome.

Jerome, in response, puts his hands on his hips. “Well, then what happened to Sokolov? It can’t be a coincidence!”

“Apparently he disappeared a lot, without telling anyone where he was going,” The Dressmaker says, wringing his hands. “Missed his own lectures and the like. My niece is a student, and she’s complained about it before.”

“So either he got drunk and fell into the river, or the Lady Regent has him locked up somewhere in the Tower.” Lizzy pushes herself off the table. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for old men locked in cages when this is all over.”

Daud suppresses a shiver at the thought.

“We should show Daud his coat,” the Dressmaker insists.

Jerome nods and, putting down whatever bullshit he had been fiddling with, turns his back and motions them forward. “This way.”

There were old mannequins in the back of the shop, odd torsos on poles without arms or heads. Daud’s seen them before in shop windows, in tailor’s offices. But instead of fancy dresses, these two mannequins sported the thick coats worn by men on whaling ships. One blood red, the other a deep blue.

“We made two,” The Dressmaker states, standing off to the side. “So pick whichever. Lizzy will take the other one.”

“Oh, so I get the scraps? I see how it is.” Lizzy laughs, not really offended.

Daud approaches the stands. He reaches out and peels back the lapel of the blue jacket. Jerome steps forward.

“There’s a number of compartments in here,” he explains, taking the fabric from Daud and holding it out. “Good for keeping extra ammo, explosives, anything you feel like picking up. We’re on a limited budget here, so any supplies you find can help us build you better gear.”

“What about armor?” Daud asks. The jacket is thick, but thick wasn’t going to stop bullets.

Jerome coughs. “There’s a bulletproof lining sewn in. Galvani weave. It’ll help deflect against any type of damage, though if someone manages to shove a sword through your chest, I can’t help you.”

Daud almost laughs, but then the words bounce in his head. And he’s revisiting the gazebo, the blade entering Billie’s abdomen, shoving a sword through her, all the blood blood blood…

“Thank you,” he gets out.

The two seem to puff up with pride. The Dressmaker motions to the two coats. “If you’ll try it on, we can get your measurements and make any necessary alterations. Ah, I suppose you’ll take the blue? Like your old uniform?”

Daud hadn’t had an official uniform, but he did often wear the same coats as the City Watch did, mostly because they were already armored and he really didn’t give a shit. His were mostly a sky blue, though, like the officers who served as bodyguards for Dunwall’s most noble and wealthy.

But he’s not the Royal Protector anymore. He’s here to kidnap Thomas back, and avenge his Billie.

Daud slips the red coat off its stand.

Jerome raises his eyebrows, but that’s all the indication he gives that he’s surprised. He moves forward and starts his measurements as Lizzy slaps her knee.

“Red, like the blood of our enemies! I love it.”

Red like the Lurk line. Daud will wear her color.

“You must of lost weight in prison…” Jerome mumbles. The Dressmaker stands on his tiptoes to see.

“How much? It must be a perfect fit, if he fails because a cuff is too loose it’ll be our fault.”

“I know, I know.” Jerome bats him away. “I can take it in. I’ll have it ready before Daud’s first mission.”

He motions for Daud to take the jacket off, then snaps at Lizzy. “Stride, your turn. Try the blue one on.”

“I feel so fancy, trying on clothes in Draper’s Ward.” She giggles in an overly-obnoxious manner. Daud rolls his eyes and turns back to the Dressmaker, who is taking clothing out of a cupboard.

“Make sure these fit,” he says, handing Daud a pair of gloves without looking up. Daud quickly fits one over his left hand. He hasn’t paid the Mark much mind, but he realizes he probably should have been trying to keep it covered. Hopefully no one has seen it-his sleeves are long and if someone has, they didn’t care enough to mention it, at least.

Daud mumbles something about them fitting fine, and the Dressmaker drops a pair of sturdy boots on the ground. “I remember you often wore lifts, so I did take the liberty of adding an extra two inches.”

Lizzy bursts into laughter and Daud’s face burns. He bends down to shove his foot in, ignoring her. Two inches was about what he normally wore-that put him even with Billie and ever so slightly taller than Thomas. Not that he’d ever admit that he wore lifts out of blatant refusal to look shorter than the Empress he guarded.

“Excellent.” The Dressmaker claps his hands together. “Now, if you’ll just slide those off… There’s just the matter of your mask left, and this is a little embarrassing to admit-”

“He fucking broke it.” Jerome doesn’t bother looking up from Lizzy’s coat. Lizzy, of course, looks up with snark written across her face.

“You broke his mask?”

The Dressmaker’s face is flushed. “Well, I broke _one_ mask. We had two, for both sets, and I was trying out this idea I had for an air filter…”

Jerome sighs. “I told you to let me handle handling the equipment,” he bites, ignoring Lizzy’s eye waggle. “Your hands can’t do it anymore.”

“I know, I just thought…” The Dressmaker sighs and rubs his neck. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. I messed up the filter and now there's no airflow. You’ll suffocate with that thing on.”

“So there’s only one mask and two of you,” Jerome states, looking between them.

Lizzy blinks, then shrugs her shoulders. “I’ll probably just be in the skiff most of the time, Daud should-”

“Lizzy takes it.”

There’s a silence as they all stare at him in confusion. The Dressmaker seems to recover first. “Well, she won’t be without a mask forever, just until we can make the necessary modifications to another, and she most likely will not-”

“Lizzy will take it,” Daud repeats, staring at them. “I don’t need a mask.”

Jerome stands up straight and turns to him. “People will know who you are,” he warns.

“If I let them see my face,” Daud says, slowly. “Then I want them to know.”

He blinks, and Daud can pinpoint the exact moment Jerome becomes afraid of him.

“I’ll have to dig up a spyglass for you…” The Dressmaker mutters.

Daud shakes his head. “Far-sighted. Don’t need one.”

Jerome reaches forward and places a hand on the Dressmaker’s shoulders. “If that’s what he says. Let it go,” he says, almost gently.

Lizzy is taking off her own coat, replacing it on its rack. “Probably good you’re not bothering with a mask, doubt your beard would fit.”

His beard. Right. Daud’s hand flies to his face. “I was going to shave.” He tries to justify.

The Dressmaker clears his throat. “I could give you a shave. A haircut too, if you’d like to get rid of those snarls.”

“Dude, you want to hold a razor to his face? You’d fucking slit his throat.” Jerome scoffs.

Lizzy slaps Daud on the arm. “If you wanted a haircut, you could have just fucking said so.” She runs to the door, the three men trailing confused behind her as she leans out of the doorway and cups her hands. “Hey Rose, you little bitch! I got a job for you!”

Daud stands there awkwardly as Lizzy shuffles around them, pulling a chair over in front of Jerome’s gadget table. “Go ahead, you guys can give Daud your presentation.”

The two shrug to each other as Rose trudges in. “What the fuck do you want, Lizzy?”

Jerome stifles a laugh. Rose seems to notice Daud then and stands up straighter, her face turning red. Lizzy waves a pair of scissors in the air. “Daud needs a trim. You think you can provide?”

She blinks. “Uh, yeah. I guess so.”

“Rose is pretty decent. She cut my hair,” Lizzy says, motioning to her half-shaved head and limp clump of hair. “Don’t worry, I wanted it like this.”

“Hers was fun.” Rose pushes back her sleeves, taking the scissors from Lizzy. “How short do you want to go?”

Daud is long past caring about his hair. “All of it.”

Rose gets to work, and Daud does his best to keep his head still while his eyes follow Jerome. He shows Daud the sword he’ll be using, something akin to an Overseer’s sabre without the bullshit inscriptions. Mines that can stun his enemies into unconsciousness, springrazors if he wants them to die a bloody death. A canister of chokedust that will confuse more than harm, giving him time to make an escape or attack. Typical assassin fare.

The wristbow, however, interests him.

“It’s silent,” Jerome informs, fitting it over his own hand to demonstrate. “You just have to bend your hand forward like this to ready the shot, and it will fire once your wrist is fully extended.”

“Impressive.” Daud had something similar when he lived on the streets, stolen from one of the local gangs. It was a piece of shit. He loved it. It was easy to conceal, so he could hide it under his sleeve and go pretty much anywhere without a fuss.

The Emperor had pitched a fit about it, though. Said something about how people needed to know where the shots came from, that his job wasn’t about stealthy kills. Made him get rid of it.

Well, having a Protector that did everything by the rules didn’t save his daughter.

Rose puts her scissors down at the same time Jerome does the wristbow. “We have a pistol for you, of course,” he continues. “Just in case. But we figured you’d prefer a quieter approach.”

“I do.” Daud states as Rose slaps at the back of his shirt, brushing away any stray hairs. “Thank you.”

Jerome swallows and smiles. “Of course, sir. It’s an honor to help.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lizzy pushes him aside. “Now shoo. It’s getting to be Daud’s bedtime.”

“I hope I did alright on your hair, sir.” Rose steps back. “I’ve never shaved a man though, so I’m afraid I can’t offer that.”

“S’fine.” Daud runs a hand over his beard, deciding not to tell her he was never going to let anyone hold anything sharp to his neck again.

“We can see how much he’s balding now,” Lizzy laughs, coming forward to grasp the front of his hair. “Outsider’s balls, we could play hockey on this forehead.”

Daud shoves her arm away.

Rose tucks her hands behind her back and turns to leave, but Lizzy holds her hand out to stop her. “Oh, wait! I almost forgot to ask you. Did Zhukov mention where the hell he was going today?”

Rose turns back and shrugs. “He said something about scoping out the first target. He was...vague. You know how he is.”

“All too well.” Lizzy rubs the bridge of her nose. “That’s all he said?”

“Afraid so.”

“Cool. Can you make sure there’s a fresh razor in the bathroom tomorrow? For Daud?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Fucking call me ma’am again and I’ll knock out half your teeth.” Lizzy pats her head affectionately. “Night night, Rose-gold.”

Rose sticks up her middle finger as she walks away, and Daud resists the urge to smirk. Servants had been stiff and proper to his face for the last decade, but he knew what they were like when their bosses weren’t around. He missed seeing this side to the common people. It was amusing. It was real.

“Been a long-ass day.” Lizzy yawns as she grabs Daud’s arm. “I’ll show you to your room. Night, asswipes!”

“Good night, Elizabeth!” If Daud hadn’t known how oblivious the Dressmaker could be, he would have sworn he was trying to get stabbed. As it was, Lizzy torques her body around to glare at him as she walks away. The Dressmaker, however, just stands there confused, as Jerome muffles his laughter with his hand.

The mill is quiet. Most of the lights are off, only a few oil lamps giving off minimal light. One window is lit, and Daud can see Galia’s blonde head bobbing around behind it. He looks up and sees the stars.

“What a day, huh?” Lizzy doesn’t turn back to him.

Daud doesn’t take his eyes off the sky. “You said it.”

 

* * *

 

  
They shoved him in the attic, it turned out.

“This was chosen to give you _privacy_ ,” Lizzy mocks. “Or at least that was Thalia’s lame-ass excuse.”

“This is fine.” Daud waves her away. It was the middle of winter, so at least it wouldn’t get stuffy and hot.

Lizzy shrugs and turns away. “You look like fucking shit. Get some rest, old man. I’ll drag you out of bed when we need you.”

She leaves then, and Daud lets out a breath he’s probably been holding all day.

Slowly, he sits down on the bed. A real fucking bed, with blankets and a pillow and shit. Toes off his shoes and slides his socks under the covers. Lays his head on the pillow. The bed is hard, lumpy, but it’s far more comfortable than his slab of stone in Coldridge.

Tomorrow he’ll get up, go meet with his allies for breakfast. Work out a plan to rescue Thomas. Strange. Less than twelve hours ago, he expected tomorrow to be the day he died.

It’s too much, too much for Daud to process. He half-expects to wake up and be back in his cell, the jailers waiting at the door to take him to the gallows.

Daud can’t get too wrapped up in thinking about that. He falls asleep instead.

 

* * *

 

 

The color of early morning light shined in, but it was dark. Daud can’t tell what time it was.

They hadn’t told him what time his execution was scheduled for. Should he assume morning? Did he still have time to go back to sleep?

The light was all wrong. Daud opens his eyes fully and nearly startles out of bed.

He wasn’t in his cell. No, the air here was different, heavier. But empty. Daud knew, logically, what this place had to be. Did that mean his wish had come true? Had he passed in the night?

The room comes into focus, and Daud is confused for a second before the events of the previous day come rushing back to him.

He’s not dead. Daud can’t really find it in him to be grateful for that.

He gets up. His legs feel stronger than they were yesterday, but the ground is less sure of itself. It’s solid beneath his feet, the floorboards even with each other, but it all might change its mind about that before Daud takes his next step.

He doesn’t know what waits for him on the other side of the door. What he’ll see. He sucks it up and pushes the door open.

The world is breaking apart. The floorboards gradually disappear until they drop off into nothing, the walls worn away and exposing what lies beyond it. And it is endless. Shapeless.

The Void.

Daud swallows. He’s not afraid. He’s given up fear long ago.

The Void is what he imagines clear to look like. Nothing for so long in one direction, and at some point his eyes don’t know what to pick up on. It’s not white. White would imply the presence of light, of other colors. They’re not there, but they’re not entirely absent either. It appears blue at the beginning, a soft, washed blue that is like and so _unlike_ the sky. But the blue is just a trick of his eyes, because there is no color here. There’s grey. Emptiness. _Nothing._

His ears pick up the sound of wind, but when he focuses, there’s only silence that reaches his ears. The air here is still. There’s a humming he can’t pick up on, can’t pinpoint, but Daud feels it in his bones.

Blinking doesn’t seem to drain him here. He’s no longer tired, Blinking from rock to rock. There’s a presence here, watching him. Daud moves closer.

Something tangible up ahead, real. A roof of blue. Daud moves towards it, knowing in his heart what it is, what it has to be, but still hoping against hope it wasn’t.

It was. The gazebo.

He Blinks in before he has time to really think about it, and immediately feels like someone has swept his legs out from under him. Because the gazebo floor is red with blood, and lying in the middle of it all, is the Empress.

Her eyes are closed, her lips barely parted. To breathe, it could be. Her hair still neatly styled; her shirt barely ruffled. Daud could believe she was sleeping if it weren’t for the hole in her stomach. For the blood fanning out from her body, moving through the cracks and divots in the stonework without ever seeming to grow in size.

She must have tasted the blood, welling up in her throat from the pierced organs in her abdomen. Billie’s mouth is red with it. He could pretend she was wearing lipstick if Daud didn’t know she avoided heavy makeup, and preferred shades of brown for her lips anyway. It was less flamboyant, more natural. Billie had always thought red lipstick made her look like she was bleeding.

Daud stands there, his hands dangling at his side. Unsure of what to do. He wants to touch her, yes-gather her in his arms, hold her one last time. Touch her face and maybe she’d wake up. Or maybe she would dissolve into the mess of bones and blood they’ve reduced her to.

She looks so real. People called her beautiful because that’s what you called Empresses, but Daud believed it wholeheartedly. He was never one to admire, neither men nor women, but Billie was always different. She held a beauty for him that no one else could ever compare to.

He steps forward. Her blood splashes under his boot, and Daud makes the mistake of looking down. The blood is moving, stretching across the pavilion, liquid squiggles turning into words that surround Billie’s body.

YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER  
YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER  
YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER  
YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER  
YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER  
YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER

Daud turns and flees.

The next island has the makings of a wall and a roof, but they have no color and Daud passes right through them. There’s trunks on the ground, fancy furniture and decorative partitions. A bed turned on its side, its mattress bare on the floor.

An older man, fine ruffled clothing and a prominent nose, frozen mid-scream. Two guards work to subdue a young man-a boy, really, one holding him by his shoulders and the other grabbing his wrist. The boy is shrinking away, terror clear on his face.

Thomas.

Daud stares for a long while. He reminds himself that this is proof Thomas is alive, that he’s okay. But it’s overshadowed by the anger that takes root in him.

He doesn’t know who these men are. But he’ll find out. And he’ll put the same fear on their faces before he sees them dead.

Daud reaches out to touch Thomas’s face, but decides against it. He’ll see him again soon. He’ll save him from this. As soon as he can. Daud gives Thomas one last look before Blinking away.

When he sees Delilah, he’s overcome with the urge to strangle her. But he stands back, takes a breath. He knows he cannot touch her from here, but he still wonders if she could feel it if he does.

Delilah paints, her hands wandering a canvas taller than she is. Her hair is shorter now, combed back from her face. She wears a necklace of flowers and rings on her fingers. He recognizes the sigil on her signet ring. The symbol of the House of Lurk.

She paints Billie, her skin a kaleidoscope of colors. Mouth open, her lip and right eye swollen. Injured, brutalized even. Colors of fire in her hair and blues of the ocean where her heart should be. Delilah smirks while she perfects the dead look in her eye.

Daud doesn’t think he can enact a death that would do her justice.

He doesn’t know the people in the next island. A girl pulls along an older man, perhaps her father. Bloody tears streaming down their faces. Behind them a flaming bolt that will end their lives suspended in the air.

He can’t quite make sense of the next one. An old woman in a fur coat stands in front of a fire, leaning over to extract something white from the coals with a pair of tongs. He can see the flames reflected in her milky, blind eyes, and he shivers. Behind her watches three women, and Daud recognizes them as Galia Fleet, Lydia Boyle, and Rose Copper. Galia looking more annoyed than scared, Lydia leaning forward in interest, and Rose just looking worried.

He pays it no mind, for now. He’ll think back on it if he needs to, and not a second before.

The people in the next scene are a mystery to him from afar. He can’t make them out, can’t make his eyes settle on any one detail. They are motionless, but they are not still.

It’s not until he’s standing right before them that he recognizes them. The woman, dressed in black with decadent buttons of gold. One hand gripping her blade, _the_ blade, and the other having just rolled out a grenade that sits suspended in the air, never to hit the ground. The damn beak in her mask.

Her partner-a man, Daud can tell-stands with her back-to-back. Hood up, his sword at the ready. His left hand clenched. Daud can see the glow, so faint under his glove, but it's there. When he peers up into the man’s hood, he finds the face of a skull staring him down.

He’s seen them before. And he’ll kill them too.

When Daud steps back and looks around, he’s surprised to find the golden faces of the Abbey surrounding them. They circle around the couple, pistols and swords at the ready. The woman’s grenade was meant for them, rolled out at their feet.

They are not whole. The two murderers in black are the focal point here. The Overseers that serve as their opponents are already fractured, body parts having faded from existence. Daud knows they are not destined to survive this fight. The couple in black will slaughter them all.

He’s seen enough.

The final island-and it must be the last one, as Daud can see no more-is small, room enough for him to take a few steps as he Blinks in. There’s a menagerie of fabrics, purples with intricate patterns stitched in gold, trailing off over the side. It hangs there, mid-air, blasted back by some unknown force. Or presence. Suspended in time. All surrounding a figure of driftwood, and the singing piece of bone upon it.

He had been too far away to have been hearing this in the beginning, but what else could it be? It cries out for him. And the moment Daud touches the rune, runs his hands over the pattern etched in it, the Void is silent.

And then his ears explode with sound. There’s a gust of wind he cannot feel, and the Leviathan Himself is before him, sitting on the shrine as if it were His throne.

Daud can hear the music of the bones, a chorus of it, together and louder than anything he could imagine. He wonders if the boy Himself has the bones of a whale, if He Himself is a rune. If Daud might tear Him apart and find His ribs and skull already carved in ancient languages. If maybe that’s why the Outsider Himself seems to sing.

“Hello again, Daud.”

His voice is familiar, but different. It carries a strange echo here. Unworldly.

The Outsider folds His legs and leans forward, His terrible black eyes never leaving Daud. “It’s been a while since I visited you in prison, my friend.”

It hasn’t. “We’re not friends.”

He raises his eyebrows then, leaning back. “Oh?”

And then He’s gone in a flurry of black and dust. Daud doesn’t bother to look around, and in a moment he’s startled by a figure at his shoulder, hovering in mid-air.

“Because I gave you the power to fight back.” Daud should know better by now, but he still has to reign in his gasp. The Outsider’s thin figure bent over at the waist, black eyes staring down at Daud’s. “The power to escape your death. To take revenge. To save the boy you love like a son. Most people would consider us on friendly terms by now.”

“I’m not most people.” Daud says gruffly.

The Outsider might have laughed, if such a being were capable of it. “Clearly.”

They stare off for a moment, then the Outsider fades away once more.

“The greatest of rivers are often fed by unmeasured sources.” Daud is expecting it this time, and he whirls around to find the Outsider walking the air around the island. “The Wrenhaven, for instance, originates at Raseri Lake, a place so shallow that on days where the water is clear, you can see the remnants of the flooded town that made the place their home, before it sank and filled with rainwater. From that tiny body of water casts a river that flows throughout the continent and has spawned countless civilizations from its banks. It all comes back to that source, but once the water has left its shores, the river is free to make its own path.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Daud says. The Outsider just smiles, and disappears again.

“You will play an important role in the coming days.” The voice is behind him, and Daud has to turn around. The Outsider floats with His back to the islands of Dunwall, gesturing out to the activity taking place there. “You will encounter great trials, and face many hardships. Seek the ancient runes bearing My Mark in the lonely places of your world, and at the shrines raised in My name, and they will grant you power beyond those of whom you fight against. For this purpose, I bestow upon you another gift.”

Daud tries to tell Him that he doesn’t want His gifts, but the Outsider is gone.

Behind Daud, there is a different presence now. He turns and notices that the altar is no longer empty.

It’s a small thing, but it draws him. Seems to _pulse_ with power. Daud’s feet move of their own volition, reaching out for it.

The presence is familiar to Daud. He knows it. Knows _her_.

“No…”

His hands close around the object, shaped like a heart. Hard, and brittle. Small enough to hold in one hand. The presence overwhelms him, and the shrine comes apart at the seams and blows away.

 _‘We shouldn’t be here,’_ Billie Lurk’s voice calls out to him, clear as the Void. _‘No one should.’_

Daud throws a hand over his mouth to stifle his gasp. Then he keeps it there, for he’s sure he’s going to puke.

At first, he has the terrible thought that it’s actually her heart. Gone stiff with death, calcified by sea water. But after a moment, he recognizes the charm. A talisman simply carved into the shape of a heart, the figure of a rat hewn from the top. One of Billie’s few possessions when Daud first met her. A friend had stolen it for her as a gift-Deirdre? Yes, Deirdre-and she had treasured it long after they became separated. She still kept it after becoming Empress, locking it away somewhere safe in her quarters. She had used her position to look for her friend, but was unable to find her. All she had left of her was the talisman. It was Billie's most treasured possession.

And now, it was her prison.

Daud’s hands shake. He wants to destroy it. Cut it open with his sword, wide enough to release her, but also terrified at the thought of it being harmed. Of Billie’s voice going silent again. Of losing what was left of her.

“Oh, Billie…” Daud runs his hand over the talisman. “What are you?”

_‘I am tired. How long must I remain here?’_

Daud swallows. “I don’t know.”

A pause. Then, _‘What have they **done** to me?’_

He doesn’t know that either. But he refrains from saying.

Daud looks up then, at the endless expanse of the Void. His hand clenches automatically, and Billie’s voice again rings out.

 _‘There are no stars in the sky here.’_ she says, incredulously. _‘There is no **sky**.’_

Daud watches, then squeezes the talisman again. “You know this place.”

 _‘It is the end of all things,’_ She tells him, like a secret. _‘And the beginning. Time, as you know it, is meaningless.’_

Daud is silent. He wonders, silently, but Billie still seems to hear his thoughts.

 _‘This is the place where witches and heretics, all those who practice the dark arts draw their power. And this place is their doom.’_ She adds, boredly.

There’s another gust of wind, and Daud turns to face the Outsider once again.

In his hand, the talisman vibrates. _‘He is all things. Cradle songs of comfort, bones gnawed by teeth. Don’t be afraid, but be wary.’_

Daud holds out the talisman. “Let her go.”

The Outsider just continues to stare. Impassive. He smirks without a muscle in His face so much as twitching. “No.”

Tears threaten to spring up in Daud’s eyes, but he swallows and blinks them away, as always. “You can’t...this isn’t right. You can’t _keep her here_.”

“That’s beyond my power, Daud. I don’t choose who tethers themselves to the mortal plane and who passes into nothing. Billie Lurk has always been a woman who had her choices taken from her, a pawn in games played well above her head. But she always finds a way to take them back.”

Daud just shakes his head. “It shouldn’t be like this. She should be at peace.”

He knows that, knows that it’s not right, not _natural_ for Billie to still be here. That people are not meant to live on past their deaths, and that she’s surely suffering for it. It wasn’t his place to keep her here. He wasn’t worth drawing out her living death.

But he feels relief that the Outsider can’t free her. That he can hold onto her voice. That the choice to extend her suffering or strengthen his own is not his to make.

And he feels incredible guilt for that as well.

 _‘Summon me to your hand,’_ Billie whispers. _‘And I will guide you when I can.’_

He doesn't want her guidance. _He_ was supposed to guide _her_ , protect _her_. He never wanted this.

And yet, his fingers close protectively around the talisman. Unnatural or not, he couldn’t deny that having her voice again was a blessing. And he did not have the strength to ask the Outsider to take it from him again.

“What is she?” Daud asks, tracing the wooden idol with his thumb. “Is she a ghost?”

“What Billie Lurk has become is unprecedented. She has broken through the hollows of the world, and become one with them. Now, she is transposed within herself.”

“That means nothing to me,” Daud mumbles, still staring at the talisman.

The Outsider doesn’t change His face and there’s no exasperation within His voice, nothing to indicate He’s losing patience. Daud still feels as though the Outsider is talking down to him. “She has become a being of two places. One eye to look upon the world, and another trained on the Void.”

Daud says nothing. The Outsider seems to take his silence as confusion.

“She can see it all. The Void breaking and spreading through all the cracks, like seawater sinking an old ship.”

She’ll see everything. If she has a heart left, it might break.

“I’ll fix this.” He whispers it to her, stroking the surface of the talisman. “I’m going to save Thomas. Protect him. I know what to do,” he soothes. Daud brings her talisman to his lips. “I’ll avenge you, I promise.”

 _‘I ask nothing of you,’_ she tells him. _‘But to remember who you are. And who you could be.’_

Daud swallows. Above him, the Outsider raises His hand.

“Now, I return you to your world, but know that I will be watching with great interest.”

“Is that what this is to you?” Daud lowers Billie's talisman, but he keeps his grip on it. “Entertainment? A game? Just trying to see what kind of chaos you can spread?”

“No, Daud. You’re the one who will either draw blood or spare it. Those decisions will forever be yours; I will not take those choices from you. But it is a choice I very much look forward to watching you make.”

“Then what is this, then? Why are you doing this?” Daud yells.

The Outsider smiles. Actually fucking smiles. “My dear Daud,” He practically coos. “Think of it as a _curiousity_.”

Then the ground disappears beneath his feet, and Daud can see nothing but the Void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daud led Thomas inside by laying out a trail of food like Sully did in that one scene in Monster Inc., in case you wanted to know.  
> So real talk. I totally named Rose Lily at first and then realized I was going to fuck up somebody's name at some point. But she's also a character in one of my other Dishonored fics (which I will probably never finish nor get around to posting) so like...I couldn't just change her name. So there's an actual reason behind that.  
> Corvo 100% tried to yell 'Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin-Attano' and completely butchered it at some point. I'm calling it now.  
> I tried looking it up, but I have no idea how Daud's Fucking Wristbow (the official name, btw) is supposed to work. The DH wiki says it's powered by whale oil and it fires when you extend your wrist, but how that would even work and how you would avoid misfiring it all the time is beyond me.  
> I tried to do the Void justice. The games get some flack for how they portray it, especially with the differences between DH1 and 2, but I think it's a concept that would be close to impossible to do right. We can't comprehend 'nothing'. We just can't, it's a limitation of our brains. The Void is supposed to be terrifying, strange and empty despite holding all the universe in it. It would be some Lovecraft bullshit, your eyes not sure what to process and your mind not understanding how to comprehend it all. If the Void was real, it would truly be beyond human understanding. Perhaps the Outsider's as well.


	4. Whispers From The Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud finds some bones lying around. And there's a witch or two somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say Zhukov was going to appear in this chapter, and that was a lie. Originally every chapter was going to be a complete quest like it is in the game, but that would make all the chapters way too fucking long. Now every other chapter will be the actual quest bit, the driving around in Lizzy's boat and killing things, and the drama happening on base will have their own chapters. So Zhukov will indeed pop up in the next chapter and I will continue to regret his existence.

Daud grabs Lizzy by the throat when she comes to shake him awake. He releases her quickly and mumbles an apology, not looking her in the eye. Lizzy rubs her throat resentfully but declines to comment. “Breakfast is ready, asshole. Bosses want to talk.”

“I’ll be down.” Daud slides his legs out from under his covers and rubs his neck. “Give me a few.”

Lizzy shrugs and departs. Daud remembers that he wanted to ask her if Zhukov had returned.

His attic bedroom is too large. It’s all too easy to imagine it breaking apart, again, disappearing piece by piece into the Void.

The Void.

Daud holds up his left hand. The Mark is still there, like an ink splotch staining his skin. He clenches his fist, and it glows like dying embers.

So it wasn’t a hallucination. The Outsider really did speak to him. Called him into the Void. And gave him…

The Talisman forms from an inky black mist, right into his waiting palm. Daud hunches over and gags.

The nausea passes, but the thick feeling of dread doesn’t. Daud chokes it down and gives the Talisman a half-hearted squeeze, in a way of saying good morning.

 _‘You are like the whaler,’_ Billie whispers in her sweet, sweet voice. _‘Casting your nets, harnessing the power of the deep. Taming beasts far greater than man was ever meant to be.’_

The Talisman disappears once he releases his hold on it. He leans down, pushes his feet into his shoes, laces them up and stands. He stretches for a moment before he realizes something.

He feels great.

There’s no soreness in his joints, no pain from the various cuts and bruises he sustained the day before. Even his older marks had ceased to pain him.

He should be sore. He’s a swordsman, sure, but he spent the last six months sitting in a cell and getting absolute minimum exercise. His muscles were not used to the things he was forcing them to do yesterday. They should be screaming at him now, berating his activity for the day before and demanding he stay in bed, give them a break.

But he’s fine. More than fine. He feels refreshed, rejuvenated in a way he hasn’t felt upon waking up in a long time.

It’s like he’s in his twenties again. His body springs back into shape in an instant.

Daud clenches his fist again, and he shoots across the room.

It felt...better. He could still feel _that_ strain, though. Feel it in his chest, his stomach. Some deep part of him that he couldn’t identify.

Reed Copper is sweeping the landing when Daud walks down. He stands at attention, and-Outsider’s balls-fucking _salutes_ him. “Good morning, sir!”

“Morning.” Daud scratches his chin. “Breakfast is ready, kid.”

Reed blinks. “We already ate.”

Right. Of course. The servants would have eaten already, would have been up first and taken their meal before preparing their employer’s.

What time _was_ it? Daud is usually up with the sunrise. He normally eats breakfast by himself, if he bothers to eat at all, and nurses a coffee a few hours later while Billie and Thomas eat.

Fortunately, there’s windows built into the main factory, slim and high up, but they let in the daylight. Mid-morning, then. Daud had been more tired than he thought.

“Daud,” Thalia Timsh says from the table, at her usual place at the head. “Come sit down and eat. We have some things to discuss.”

Everyone’s already eating. If this were Dunwall Tower, Daud might take it as disrespect. But they aren’t constrained by those rules here. And he’s always thought they were silly anyway.

 _‘Listen,’_ Billie calls out to him. _‘I can hear their every thought.’_

He waits, but Billie doesn’t elaborate further.

Daud slides into his seat between Lizzy and Galia, who are both digging into their breakfasts with differing degrees of decorum. Rose places a plate in front of him, then scurries off back to the kitchen.

_‘They look on you with anticipation. There is death in their dark eyes.’_

Daud scrambles to hush the Talisman-though how he could even begin to do that is beyond him. He lets it form in his hand without thinking, then tries to hide it under the table. Nobody seems to notice anything amiss. Can they not hear her?

 _‘The people around you cannot see me,’_ Billie admits. _‘I am here, and not here when you need me.’_

At the moment, Daud supposed he should be grateful for that. Instead he just feels drained. He looks down at his plate.

They somehow managed to get Serkonan sausage. Daud pops a piece into his mouth and waits for the spices to explode on his tongue. Perhaps time has dulled his sense of taste. Or maybe he’s still in shock, and that’s why everything tastes like unsalted mashed potatoes.

“I hope everyone had a pleasant sleep,” Thalia states. It’s an empty sentiment. A way for her to gather people's attention. She doesn’t care how anyone slept. “Now it’s time to get down to business. And I’m afraid I have some bad news for you all.”

“Zhukov is missing,” Galia blurts, conveniently looking away from Thalia, not noticing her glare. “He’s been gone for two days, and our spy at Holger Square tells us that the Overseers have someone fitting his description in custody.”

“What kind of description did they give?” Edgar scoffs. “Big as a lamppost, looks like a bug? Speaks like he’s forgotten half his language?” He’s cut off by what sounds like Lizzy kicking him under the table.

Thalia purses her lips, but otherwise her face betrays no emotion. “Well, regardless. He hasn’t returned, and the last place we knew him to be going was the area around Holger Square. So it would be a safe bet to say that he is the captive they are talking about, and if not, then he’s most likely dead.”

“Zhukov’s not dead!” Galia says indignantly.

“You have spies at Holger Square?” Daud says at the same time.

Paul holds up his half-eaten sausage. “This sausage is bangin’.”

Thalia looks angrily to the people on her right. Both Edgar and Lydia, who has a book open on the table and has just been quietly trying to eat her breakfast, shrink into themselves under Thalia’s cold fury. Paul continues eating without even looking up at her.

“Well, whether Zhukov is dead or not,” Thalia closes her eyes and rubs her temples as if everyone’s mere presence is causing her mental strain. “Somebody needs to go after him. Even if he’s been killed, the Overseers can’t have his body. Who knows what kind of incriminating evidence he has under that coat?”

“Like his dick?” Lizzy mumbles into her porridge. Edgar dissolves into giggles, and Daud suppresses one of his own even though he doesn’t find it particularly funny.

If Thalia heard, her face doesn’t betray it. “Daud,” she turns to him. “I wish we could give you a few more days to recover, but I’m afraid that doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now. We need you to go after Zhukov.”

“And conveniently, he was staking out our first target,” Lizzy announces, swiping her napkin across her mouth and throwing it down. “So we might as well take care of that while we’re over there.”

“Who’s our first target?” Daud asks, turning to Thalia.

“Luca Abele. His affair with the Lady Regent is well-known. Supposedly they plan to announce their engagement when the plague officially meets its end.”

Doubtful. Delilah had to remain single-officially, at least. That way she could marry Thomas once he was on the throne. And eighteen, though that was only a few months away. And that assumes Delilah had the morals not to marry a child.

“You want me to kill him?”

Thalia looks grim and nods. “Yes. He’s close with the Regent and has considerable pull in their social circles, not to mention his influence over the Duke and Duchess of Serkonos. He has to go.”

Edgar pipes up from the other side of the table. “We also think he knows where Thomas is being held.”

Daud head snaps to the side. Luca was as good as dead already-he’s wanted a good excuse to put the bastard out of his misery for a while, and him being the one who first broke in with the lie when Billie was murdered didn’t help endear him to Daud.

But if he knows where Thomas is? Daud will make him beg for death to pry that information from his lips.

“We think Luca is privy to that knowledge, yes.” Thalia clears his throat. “He gets dossiers regarding the official business of the Lady Regent’s inner circle, and we’re certain that somewhere in those documents lies Thomas’s location.”

Daud could float. He has an actual lead on where Thomas is now. He’s getting closer.

And yet, with this information comes a new desperation. Daud needs to get up now, head out now, find those papers and find Thomas before the information goes bad. Because Daud might be closer to finding Thomas, but Thomas is not any safer for it.

“When do we leave?” This is addressed to Lizzy, who looks almost startled by the question. Daud crams more sausage into his mouth and waits for her answer.

Lizzy blinks. “Uh. Well, our coats probably aren’t finished. And it would be smarter to wait until nightfall.”

“It’s imperative that we move as soon as possible.” Thalia brings her fork to her mouth and chews as if she had been discussing her latest party plans.

The Talisman comes to life in his hand. _‘The world is a stage and its people her audience for one Thalia Timsh. She acts the part that’s expected of her, faking relations with her family and friends. They are dolls to serve her own petulant will.’_

Lizzy has a mouthful of something too, but she still frowns and talks with her cheeks bulging with food. “No. We need to fucking wait. Why would we purposely make our jobs harder?”

“Why would we give the Overseers more time to extract information from Zhukov, more of a chance to kill him?” Thalia is too polite to point with her fork, but Daud can’t help but feel it’s implied. Galia slaps her hand down on the table.

“Zhukov is not going to let a bunch of Overseers kill him!”

Daud startles and leans away from Galia, who is nearly panting with anger. Her eyes narrowed, trained on Thalia. Daud has never seen her like this.

 _‘Galia Fleet looks up to you, and believes in your cause,’_ Billie tells him. _‘But she craves power. She will do anything for those who promise it. Her lust for it encompasses her being, and competes with her loyalty. One day she’ll have to choose.’_

Edgar puts down his fork. “Dusk will give Daud and Lizzy some cover. Let 'em wait. The Distillery District is right across the river. Only take them an hour or something to get there.”

“Fine.” Thalia resumes picking at her food, ignoring Lizzy’s grumbling of _that’s what I just fucking said.’_ “But I want Abele dead tonight. And you two back by dawn, with Zhukov. Or his corpse.”

“Understood.” Daud drinks from his water glass, kicking Lizzy under the table when she opens her mouth.

She glares, but all that comes out is a quiet, syrupy-sweet “Yes, mother.”

“Well, anyway…” Paul leans back in his chair. “Compliments to whoever got their hands on this sausage. It fucking rocks.”

“It’s rather spicy.” Lydia Boyle says without looking up from her book.

Paul rolls his eyes. “You people don’t know good food. I’m from Karnaca, and we like our food with a little heat.”

“Maybe food’s not supposed to set your mouth on fire.” Lizzy says as she shoves her spoon into her mouth. “Leave that to the whiskey.”

“Why not both? Daud, aren’t you a fellow Serkonan? Are you from Karnaca too?”

The Talisman shivers.  _‘Paul Blanchard feels as if he was born into the wrong life, the wrong body. He resents Thalia for her coddled upbringing, her disregard for others, among other things. He is not working for her for typical reasons.’_

Daud swallows. “I moved around a lot. Lived in a couple different places. Karnaca wasn't one of them.” Or if it was, he doesn't remember. He hopes Paul doesn’t have more questions.

But Paul seems satisfied, popping another piece of sausage in his mouth. “But you still have those Serkonan taste buds, right? You don’t think this bland shit they call food is real food.”

Daud has to smile at that, and raises his remaining sausage in agreement. “I’m with you on that one.”

“Traitor,” Lizzy mumbles under her breath.

 

* * *

 

With his face freshly shaved, Daud almost feels somewhat human. Maybe. That beard was driving him crazy.

He leans over and presses the wet towel to his face. He’s always hated facial hair, thinks it looks stupid and feels itchy. He grew out a mustache once just to see if he might get used to it. Billie threatened to write an Imperial degree to make him shave it off by the third week. It had still itched then.

Daud strips off his clothes, thinking a quick scrub-down might be in order. The others might be okay with only bathing once a week, if even that, but Daud was enjoying being clean.

He’s surprised to find that most of his cuts and bruises are completely healed. A few have turned yellow where they were a deep purple yesterday, which shouldn’t happen for another few days. He presses down on them, and finds that they don’t ache.

The scars left on him by Delilah’s tortures have set into his skin. They don’t hurt either, they don’t even itch-they’re just marks now. Marks that will never fade.

Daud gets dressed again.

Ricardo bursts in as Daud buttons up his shirt. He starts wiping things down, moving bottles and books banished to the side of the toilet. Daud looks towards the door. “I was just…”

But Ricardo just waves him away. “Esci, esci.” He continues on as if Daud isn’t there.

Daud backs out of the bathroom, keeping one eye on the cleaning madman. Billie awakens in his hand. _‘There was a girl. His...daughter? No. He met her when she slid her tiny fingers into his back pocket, in search of his wallet. There was no one he ever loved more.’_

If Daud had an ‘okay person’ list going, it now numbered at two people and Ricardo just made it.

The factory is deserted when he comes down from the bathroom, but Lydia Boyle is descending the steps on the opposite stairs. She seems startled, but then smooths her shirt out. “Oh, Daud. I thought you’d be resting, in anticipation of tonight.”

“I’m supposed to go see Jerome, get my equipment in order.”  Daud shoves his hands into his pockets. “Where are you off to?”

Lydia looks around, as if expecting somebody else to appear. “There’s a bookstore in the mall…”

“I’ll walk you there, then.”

She seems a little nervous at the prospect, but she nods her head. Really, Daud would have preferred walking alone, but he doesn’t want the people here afraid of him. And Lydia will be Thomas’s tutor, so he'd rather not intimidate her any more than necessary.

“So you said you’ve taught your niece,” Daud leads in, hoping Lydia will pick up at that.

Fortunately, she nods and begins talking. “Yes, Maria is her name.” She begins to smile then, at the mention of her niece. “She’s very young, but she’s intelligent. I’ve been teaching her basic things, reading and arithmetic.” She clasps her hands together, looking down at the ground. “I realize teaching is well below my family’s station, but Esma doesn’t think she needs a governess yet. And I’ve found I quite enjoy it.”

“That’s good.” Daud holds the door open for her as they exit the mill. “Is you niece with her mother?”

Lydia frowns. “Yes. My sisters are still at home. We had a...falling out.”

Daud nods. He knows better than to pry.

 _‘Lydia is the middle Boyle sister, younger by six minutes and older by two years respectively,’_ Billie states plainly. _‘Esma has always been the better conversationalist, and Waverly wears their face better. But Lydia has the greatest secrets of the three.’_

Daud looks at Lydia and thinks the face comment is a little harsh. Her sisters wear make-up and do up their hair, while the blemishes on Lydia’s face are plain to see and her hair pulled up in a knot. Her nose sits slightly long, but other than that, Daud would be hard-pressed to tell the three apart.

After a moment of walking in silence, Lydia raises her head again. “So you know young Lord Thomas best. Tell me about him.”

“What about him?” Daud is craving a cigarette. He hasn’t had one in months and it hadn’t bothered him before, but now he’s finding himself wanting to return to his old habits.

Lydia finally looks over to him. “Well, for starters, what was he studying? Did he enjoy his studies?”

“Oh, yeah. Thomas is a giant nerd.” A ghost of a smile plays on Daud’s lips. “You know, when we first moved to the Tower and Billie had to be tutored, he would sneak into her lessons and hide in the drapery. He was about six at the time.”

Lydia throws her head back and laughs. “Did he understand any of it?”

“More times than not. A lot of it was stuff Billie had a hard time grasping. She would be furious.”

“That’s amazing.” Lydia throws him a genuine smile.

Daud finds himself nodding. “He’s a bright kid. Talented.”

“He’ll make a great Emperor.”

There’s silence between them for a second. Daud coughs. His fingers instinctively curl and call Billie to his hand.

 _‘Lydia Boyle is one of the finest musicians in the city,’_ she presses. _‘When she’s alone, she plays the harpsichord. She much prefers the company of strings and ivory keys to that of men.’_

“What is your lesson plan? For Thomas, I mean.” Daud watches her out of the side of his eye. “Government? Strictures? The arts?”

Lydia seems to visibly perk up at mention of the arts, but reigns herself in. “Well, I’m certainly not qualified to instruct him on matters of ruling. He probably already knows more than I do about that, as the Empress’s brother.” She fingers one of her shirt buttons nervously. “I can teach math, natural philosophy, literature. The sort of things I was instructed on myself, growing up.” She turns her face to him, trying to look casual. “What does he like? Does he enjoy art? Music?”

Thomas is impartial to music, but Daud doesn’t want to burst her bubble. “A little. He especially likes to read, though.”

That was an understatement. Thomas’s love for books was voracious at times. It started as soon as Daud taught him how to sound out words-he wanted to read everything, from the streets signs to graffiti to the copy of _The Young Prince of Tyvia_ that Daud had stolen and had lying on the floor, intending on re-selling on the black market. He had been over the moon when they were shown the royal library at Dunwall Tower, and he was told he could read any book he wanted. He would often retreat to Billie’s study with a book in hand, and Daud was quite fond of the quiet afternoons that afforded, Billie scratching away at some Imperial order at her desk and Thomas sprawled out on the couch, lost in a book.

But Lydia just claps her hands in delight, snapping Daud out of the picture. “Oh, another reader! We’ll have plenty to talk about, then.” They’re in the mall proper now, and she points down the hallway. “I’ve been raiding the bookstore in here as of late, collecting things for lessons and my own use. It’s not as extensive as my family’s library, but then, I’ve read everything we own already.”

“I didn’t know there was a bookstore in here,” Daud mumbles. He casts a glance to his right, where Jerome’s workshop is located. Lizzy is already in there, probably playing with their new weapons and annoying Jerome.

Lydia is walking away, but she turns backwards to talk to him, a smile on her face. “Feel free to grab a book anytime you get bored! I can recommend one!”

Daud holds up his hand in farewell, and departs for Jerome’s workshop feeling a feather lighter.

 

* * *

 

“The waist is still too loose,” Lizzy remarks boredly, sitting up on a table and kicking her legs as she watches. She’s ornery because Jerome won’t let them smoke in the workshop. Too much whale oil in there, enough to send the entire building straight into the Void. Lizzy still pouted.

“I’m working on it,” The Dressmaker cuts back, pinning Daud’s coat for the fifth time. “Your actual measurements are so different from what the official records say.”

Daud rolls his eyes and ignores it when the Dressmaker jabs him in the side. “Sorry, I guess I should have eaten more rats in prison to keep my bulk up.”

The Dressmaker puts his tools down and sighs. “That’s not...I didn’t mean…”

“Make it too tight and he won’t be able to breathe,” Jerome says, motioning with the stick of meat he’s snacking on. “How’s he supposed to slit Abele’s throat if he can’t talk without gasping?”

“Well, we aren’t _talking_ Abele to death.” Lizzy throws a button at him. Jerome shrugs.

“You know what I mean.”

“It’s not going to be that tight.” The Dressmaker pushes himself up, motioning for Daud to take the jacket off again. “I just need it so it won’t shift around while he’s moving, or get in the way.”

“Calm down, I’m just teasing.” Jerome takes the jacket from him with one hand and shoves the remaining food in his mouth with the other, then sits down at the sewing table. “Would be nice if we didn’t have to rush this.”

“You can blame Zhukov for that.” Lizzy slaps her hand down on her thigh.

“Among other things,” Jerome mumbles under his breath. Daud cranes his neck to watch his sewing, how his brow furrows in concentration. He gently squeezes the Talisman.

_‘He’s thinking about his brother. Something’s wrong with his brain; he’s grown, but has the mind of a child. Jerome put him on a ship bound for Alba when the plague first broke, kissed his forehead and said goodbye. He’s hoping he found their aunt’s shop.’_

“And if I can just see your sleeve…” The Dressmaker tentatively reaches out to Lizzy.

She bats him away. “I’m fine. Fits perfect. Daud’s the one who looks like a Tyvian prisoner.”

Hardly. Tyvia put their prisoners to work, so they at least had muscle.

Daud would gain it back, he supposes. He tried to limit what he ate at breakfast, but his stomach seemed bottomless now. Odd. He had little appetite in Coldridge. He never felt full, of course, but he couldn’t have eaten much more than his daily bread ration even if it had been provided for him. He never felt hungry. Just...empty.

He still doesn’t feel hungry. But he can eat. Can’t taste it, but he eats.

Jerome throws down his needle and stands up, looking triumphant. “There. Done. Now try this on and hope to the Outsider that this is it.”

Daud slides the coat back on. The waist had been cinched to make up for all the pounds he’s lost, but it fit snugly for now. They’d trimmed back the sleeves a bit so it didn’t catch on his wristbow. He thinks the long coat looks almost like a dress, coming down to his knees, but he doesn’t pay it much mind. Lizzy would just make fun of him if he pointed it out, brought it to her attention.

“It’s perfect.” Jerome’s face fills with relief.

“Good, good.” He rests against the table, crossing his legs at the ankle. “There’s a little practice range out in the hallway. Go try your gear out, get a feel for it.”

“That’s what that garbage is?” Daud mutters under his breath.

Both Jerome and the Dressmaker follow them out, Lizzy already taking a few experimental swings with her new cleaver.

The mall is empty save for Reed Copper, who is hiding under the stairway and peeking out between the steps. The others don’t seem to notice him. In another life Daud might have winked at him, let him carry on with the knowledge that he needed a better hiding spot. He holds up the Talisman first.

_‘His sister tells him it wasn’t his fault. But he still wonders if he had just been quieter, done something different, been someone better, if maybe his mother would have loved him then. He’s too young to understand why she didn’t.’_

Daud turns away.

“Try to hit that bottle at the top there.” The Dressmaker points to a large bottle of Old Dunwall. Daud frowns and wonders who the hell was buying that much booze at once, to need that oversized bottle.

He peers down his wristbow and fires. It goes wide by several feet. Daud loads another bolt in, fires again. It hits the wrong bottle.

“It’s not meant to be aimed down like a real crossbow…” The Dressmaker looks nervous, as if Daud is going to shoot him in the gut. “You can fire it from the hip. It will go where you want it.”

“I’ve had one of these things before,” Daud snaps. He leaves out how his was literally made from garbage, how the dispersion was so much looser, the aim just a little off. The fact that he never used it for anything other than short distances because he’s not a fucking sniper. And it had been over a decade since he used it.

The wristbow is fairly heavy on his arm. His muscles should already be getting tired of the weight, yelling at him to drop his arm, but he feels fine. Was this the magic flowing through his veins? The Mark is covered, a layer of black fabric bandages wound around his left hand. But Daud can feel it there. Pumping magic and strength and who knows what else into his body.

The Outsider must have had a reason to Mark him. He wouldn’t have bothered if Daud really was too old to snap back, wasted away too much to be of any use. Or maybe he would. Maybe it was amusing to watch an old man fail.

The thought makes Daud grit his teeth. He keeps firing until the brown bottle explodes, his bolt stuck to the wall behind it.

Once he gets a feel for the bow, Daud’s aim is impeccable. Shattered glass falls to the floor as he hits one while moving sideways, backwards, over his shoulder. When he shoots one off out of a somersault is when Lizzy scoffs.

“Now you’re just showing off.”

Daud has to smile at that. Lizzy walks over to him as he stands, punching his shoulder. “You’re more spry than I thought you’d be, old man. Surprised your knees can take it.”

He rolls his eyes and pushes her back. “I’ve been doing this since before your mother got herself knocked up with your ass.”

Lizzy grins, showing off her golden teeth. “Joke’s on you, I was birthed from the sea and raised by river krusts.”

“That explains a lot…” Jerome mumbles. He walks over to the end of the range, glass crunching beneath his boots as he surveys the display. “Outsider’s ass, it looks like you threw a grenade.”

“It’s a shooting range, did you not want me to hit anything?” Daud folds his arms. Jerome just shakes his head.

“I’m not angry or anything. I’m impressed.” He shrugs. “We have a pretty expansive supply of empty liquor bottles anyway, thanks to Lizzy here.”

“Hey, you can’t throw shade on me and leave out Edgar and Paul’s work.”

Jerome just shakes his head and retreats back into the shop. Lizzy taps Daud’s shoulder. “Hey, I’ve always wanted to see how I measured up to the fearsome Royal Protector. Let’s have a spar, shall we?”

She puffs herself up and puts on a haughty accent, trying to look regal. Daud takes a quick look around. Reed has been coaxed from his hiding spot and is watching them openly, but the Dressmaker is with him, head bent in conversation. Reed talks without tearing his eyes from Daud and Lizzy. He should be fine, though, as long as he stays where they can see him.

Daud pulls out his sword. “Ready when you are.”

 

* * *

 

Lizzy Stride was one hell of an opponent, he’d give her that.

She was opportunistic. Relentless when it suited her and patient when it didn’t. Crouching, waiting for one missed step that would put her at advantage. What she lacked in poise she made up for in brutality. There was a power behind her swings that Daud would not have expected from someone so small and bony.

It all would have been scandalous in court duels, and disgraceful for a Navy officer, but they didn’t have the luxury of knowing they’d keep their lives if they lost a fight. People like them dueled to the death, and everything goes then.

Lizzy beats him the first time. Daud sits there, blinking, while the cold of the stone flooring seeps through his pants. Lizzy leans over to offer a hand, more to smirk at him than actually help him up. Daud accepts and resists the urge to pull her down.

Draws seemed to be the only way their fights resolved from then on. Neither could knock the other down. They’d end up with their blades at each other’s throats or positioned over their hearts simultaneously before they conceded and stepped away, mopping the sweat from their brows and downing some water before returning to it.

Their sparring had drawn a crowd, as it was. Jerome came back out of his shop to watch, leaning over a pile of abandoned boxes. Lydia had finished with her book browsing and was sitting on the steps with one open in her lap, blatantly ignoring it in favor of the match. Edgar and Galia stood off to the side and, if Daud wasn’t mistaken, seemed to be taking bets.

Daud figured he could beat Lizzy using his magic-but that felt almost like cheating. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best there was? That’s why he was trusted to guard the Empress. If some young officer just kicked out of the Navy could beat him, then he had no business trying to repel assassins.

Besides, it was smarter to keep the Mark under wraps. Both literally and figuratively. He had a feeling Lizzy wouldn’t care, but someone else in their group might. And even if they didn’t care enough to report him, word might get out. He would not taint Thomas’s ascension and rule with whispers of witchcraft and heresy. This was his own fight, and he’d win it on his terms.

“Fucking...Daud…” Lizzy pants, bent over at the waist. Daud is in a similar position, bracing himself against a crate to catch his breath.

Across the room, Edgar cups his hands. “Oi! You can’t stop yet! There ain’t no winner!”

Lizzy rises to her full height and gives him the finger. “You come over here and I’ll show you a winner!”

Edgar puts his hands up and backs off at that. Lizzy rolls her eyes and turns to Daud, a grin stretched across her face. “Let’s just call it a draw so we can go get some lunch. I’m starved.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Daud’s not hungry, but he could use a break. He sheathes his sword and falls into step beside Lizzy. Their spectators all seem to lose interest, Jerome stubbing out his cigarette and returning to his shop, Lydia packing up her pile of books. Daud looks around to see if Reed and the Dressmaker were still watching, but his eyes are drawn in by a ragged coat and a fur collar.

It must have been nice once. Long hem, quality fabric. That style had been popular once, maybe a decade ago. (He’d learned far too much about coats while sitting in on the Empress’s meetings with her tailor) But now it’s in tatters, the fine layer of dirt it’s accumulated probably holding it together better than the fraying stitches. The fur trim is matted with something Daud doesn’t want to think about. The coat is positively worn ragged.

And dressed in it is an old woman, her hair in a fine updo and her bony wrists held up to her chest. Eyes pale and blind.

The same woman from the Void.

Daud stops in his tracks. Lizzy pauses then, following his gaze to the old woman, rolls her eyes.

“Right. Forgot about her yesterday.” She grabs Daud’s elbow and pulls him over. Daud feels the overwhelming sense that he should dig in his heels and not get a centimeter closer.

The woman raises her head as they approach, which Reed looks relieved by. She had seemingly cornered him. Daud wonders where the hell the Dressmaker went and why he left him alone with her, and why he was considering the Dressmaker the ‘safe’ person to be around in the first place.

“Don’t be a pussy.” Lizzy pushes him forward. “It’s just old Granny Rags.”

The woman settles her blind eyes in their direction. Daud swallows. “Your...grandmother?”

Edgar bursts into laughter while Lizzy blows a stray brown hair out of her face. “By the Outsider’s hairy ass…”

“Come now, there’s no need for such language.”

Granny Rags’s voice is stronger than one would expect, articulate and harsh. She holds up one bony finger to wag in Lizzy’s general direction. “Elizabeth, dearie, you can be such a nasty woman at times.”

“Oh, I can show you nasty, alright.” Lizzy leans back on her heels and folds her arms, turning to Daud. “Naw, she’s not my grandma. She’s nobody’s grandma. She’s just old as fuck.”

Behind them, Edgar takes an obnoxious sip of something in a brown bottle. “Now _that_ wasn’t very nice.”

Granny Rags _tsks._  Literally says the word, shaking her head all the while. The only person Daud has ever seen do that was one particularly stuffy governess of Thomas's who lasted all of a month before she was fired, much to the relief of Daud’s nerves.

“Rubbing it in.” Granny Rags sighs. “Granny’s dear husband can’t give her children, no no no. Oh, but I have my birdies to keep Granny company. Or I would, if Reed stopped shooing them away.”

“They’re rats, Granny.” Reed protests while holding his broom across his chest. “They’ll get us sick. They’ll get _you_ sick.”

Granny pats Reed on the head, and he visibly shrinks under her hand. “Oh, Granny doesn’t get sick. My husband takes very good care of me, don’t you see?”

“Your husband’s fucking dead, Granny.” Lizzy grabs Daud’s hand. “Come on. We’ll have enough crazy around when we find Zhukov’s ass. We don’t need this.”

“Wait!” Granny Rags bursts forward, latching onto Daud’s arm so quickly he nearly shoves the old woman back out of surprise. She pulls on him, and Lizzy pulls back, and for a moment Daud wonders if Lizzy and Granny Rags have begun an impromptu game of tug-o-Daud.

Lizzy, thankfully, drops his hand with a huff. Daud stands there with Granny Rags hanging off his other arm. She wets her lips. “You’re going to the Distillery District tonight, aren’t you?”

Daud takes a glance back at Lizzy, who looks equally confused. “How did you-”

“Oh, I hear everything.” Granny slaps his bicep with enough force to make Daud wince. “Granny has ears everywhere. And a little birdy told me what you and Miss Elizabeth are up to tonight.”

“Cut the crap, Granny, how do you always find this shit out? You disappear for days then act like you’ve been sitting beside us the entire time. It’s fucking unnerving.” Lizzy crosses her arms.

Edgar pops up beside her. “Yeah, only three of us knew who our first target was before this morning. You’ve been gone all day, how the fuck do you keep finding this stuff out?”

Granny pays Lizzy and Edgar no mind, going so far as to turn Daud in the opposite direction and begin leading him away. “I used to live down on Bottle Street, did you know? Quaint little apartment. Oh, but Slackjaw and his men have made such a mess of the place.”

“Uh huh.” Daud digs in his heels, trying to gently pry Granny Rags’s iron-grip from his arm. She doesn’t even seem to notice.

“I didn’t want those louts getting their hands on my heirlooms, no, so I stashed them. You seem like the type who would appreciate such lovely treasures, dear.”

“He doesn’t want you old jewelry, Granny.” Lizzy is getting impatient. Daud would tear himself away, but Granny Rags turns over his arm and pats the back of his hand. His left hand.

_‘She’s a crazy bitch, that’s for sure. But the last thing she is is harmless. Be careful.’_

Daud swallows.

Granny’s decrepit smile doesn’t fade. “You remember my doctor, don’t you dear? Doctor Galvani, who lives in that big house on Clavering? He has a secret room in his lab, hiding behind his words, those doctors types, where he can hide his crimes. That’s where I hid them!”

She releases him then, her hands dancing around each other. Daud quickly takes a step back. “I’ll keep that in mind,” He gets out, turning around.

Lizzy loops her arm in his, pulling him away. “Have a good night, Granny!” She yells. Edgar hurries along behind them.

Granny Rags still stands there, smiling. Her eyes trained on people she cannot possibly see. “They’re yours if you want them! You don’t even have to share!”

They pass by Reed, and Lizzy darts out and grabs him by the wrist. He yelps, dropping his broom as he’s dragged along. “Lizzy!”

“What, do you really want to be left alone with Granny Crazy-Pants?” She hisses. Reed shrugs.

“I have chores…”

“You can take a break. Come on, let’s find your sister.”

Daud gives her a look. “Just Granny Rags, huh?”

Lizzy shoves him. “She’s harmless in the sense that a rat with a butter knife could probably take her, but isn’t there that thing about hags eating children?” She pulls Reed closer to her. “I sure as fuck ain’t taking any chances.”

“Aww! Lizzy loves Reed!” Edgar teases.

Reed yanks his hand away from Lizzy, wrinkling his nose. “Ew.”

“So why is she here?” Daud interrupts, trying to prevent any unnecessary stabbings.

“Your guess is as good as mine, pal.” Edgar keeps pace with them now, on the other side of Daud, and the line-up makes Daud think of Tyvian dolls. Largest to smallest.

“I don’t even know how she got in here,” Lizzy says as they exit the mall. “She just showed up one day and started strolling around, being her batty self. For whatever half-baked reason, Zhukov won’t let us kick her out.”

“What did Zhukov do?” Galia had been waiting for them outside, evidently. She stubs out her cigarette and pushes herself away from the wall to meet them.

Lizzy waves her hand. “Won’t let us get rid of crazy old Granny Rags.”

Galia crosses her arms. “I’m sure he has his reasons.” She huffs.

“What? What fucking reason?” Edgar groans. “She doesn’t _do_ anything. Just wanders around being creepy all day. We just had to save a small child from her clutches!”

At the other end of the line Reed protests. “I was fine! I had a bunch of aunts who are weird like that. I’m used to it.”

“You got a weird-ass fucking family, kid.” Lizzy pats his head affectionately.

Galia turns back to Edgar. “So, do you owe me a drink?”

“Daud didn’t win shit, Fleet. They both pussied out.”

 

* * *

 

Lizzy returns to her own quarters after lunch, intending on taking a nap. She advises Daud to do the same.

He does go upstairs and lay down, but sleep doesn’t come to him. He knows he’ll need the sleep. They will very likely be out until dawn.

But Daud’s never been a nap kind of person. Sighing, he pushes himself out of bed.

What could he do? Sparring would make him tired. He doubted he could quiet his thoughts long enough to read a book. He couldn’t really think of anyone he knew well enough to talk to-there was Galia, but Daud wasn’t sure he could trust her. He really couldn’t think of anything he could say anyway.

There were those things that helped him escape from Coldridge. Powers, gifted by the Outsider. Those were worth exploring before he left.

Blinking is simple enough-aim somewhere, think about it, and let the magic take him there. There's a temporary strain after using it, but if he concentrates, he can feel it ebb away after a few short seconds. If he was patient, allowed himself to ‘recharge’ a bit after every use, he could avoid being completely drained by it.

Next he tries utilizing that ‘Pull’ power he used to break a bottle. He stands at the one end of the room and focuses on his pillow. It was something light, quiet if he dropped it and wouldn’t break. He raises his arm, feels the tingle of his magic through his muscles, and _wills_ the pillow to move.

It does so, but the tingling in his arm increases in severity until it's absolutely unbearable. Daud drops his arm, sore and heavy, and the pillow falls to the floor.

Right. So that usefulness was limited. Unless he found a better way to deal with the mana drain it caused.

The only thing left he hadn’t tried was his black-vision power, whatever the hell that was. Possibly there were other skills, other powers hidden away in the Mark’s symbols, but he didn’t understand how to unlock them. Perhaps they would present themselves to him. In time.

He closes his eyes. Focuses. When he opens them again, everything is the same.

He tries again. Same results. He tries to call back to those moments at Coldridge, the desperation and fear. No, he pushes those down. He was calming himself at the time. Trying to bite down the panic, focusing on his task. He was looking for something. He doesn’t have anything particular to look for now, but he still thinks on it.

Daud opens his eyes. Before him is a sea of black, all unimaginably dark and deep. Yet, somehow, he can tell one shade of black from the next.

He sees the inner workings of the walls, the beams and insulation packed into the tiny space. Sees the tree branch that brushes along the side of the mill. The picture fades away before it meets the tree-there’s a limit to his sight, and beyond that, everything is just grey.

Daud looks down and is slightly startled by the activity. He can see right through the floor, see the moving figures of black, shimmering grey outlining their details.

Below him, A woman with her hair cut into a bob sits at the dining room table, head bowed. Probably reading a book, as it can only be Lydia. Galia is the only other woman with that haircut, and Daud can’t discern a sword or her bulky jacket from the figure. He can see Rose walking around the room-he can tell it’s her, with how huge her hair is. Two men in the kitchen, one obviously Gerald by his height and posture. The other is taller, skinnier, so could reasonably be either Ricardo or Paul. Daud can’t see a mustache, which would make it Paul, but that might just be a limitation of his power.

There’s more grey as Daud tries to extend his power further, see down to the first floor. He concentrates, thinking the sight might come into focus then, but there’s nothing. His vision is clear, until there’s nothing.

Except...what was that?

Daud blinks. The dot, the pulsing orange that he saw lingers on his retinas. That was...something. He didn’t know what, but he intended on finding out.

His eyes feel strained now, like after a couple hours of reading and arguing with Billie that he didn’t need glasses, he just liked holding the paper this far away from his face. It fades after a few blinks. This power is weird. Like looking at the world through the filter of the Void.

One eye on the world, one on the Void. Daud wills the Talisman to his hand. To his surprise, it’s humming with a strength he only felt when it was first pressed into his hands.

He moves his hand, and it quiets. But only slightly. He moves it back and it increases again.

Ah. It's responding to the...whatever he saw, with his vision aided by the Void. Another reason Daud has to go looking for it.

He goes to make his way down the stairs but then he thinks. This would be a perfect opportunity to practice. If he screwed up tonight there would be dire consequences, but the worst thing that would happen now would be someone looking at him oddly as he fell from the ceiling. And there were worse things in life than that.

He crouches on the top step and aims for a nearby beam. Looks. Focuses. _Blinks._

It’s easy enough to grab onto the beam as it comes at him. He grins, looking around the the nearest suitable beam, crossing the ceiling like some sort of arcane monkey.

Lydia is still at the table while he swings from beam to beam above the factory floor, but she’s not focused on her book. She’s talking to Rose, who is busying herself around the table.

“There hasn’t been much cause for singing lately, I’m afraid.” Rose bites her lip as she organizes a table's worth of books and loose papers. “I might be a little out of practice.”

“But you can get back in practice easily.” Lydia waves her hand, looking very animated but pointedly not turning in her seat to face Rose. “Perhaps you should join me some night. I’ll play the harpsichord for you, and you can sing for me.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I shall.”

Daud cranes his neck to peer into the kitchen. It is indeed Paul in there, with Gerald at the stove. Paul is telling some sort of story about fighting a flock of geese with his bare hands, complete with punching the air. Gerald just nods and continues his work.

Lydia and Rose have turned their conversation hat pins, and Daud makes his exit before his arms give out.

He holds the Talisman out again when he reaches the storeroom, the approximate area where he saw the glow. It pulses with an even greater intensity with proximity, leading him on. Daud jumps onto the top shelf and creeps along until the Talisman nearly vibrates right out of his hand.

It’s a spool of fabric, exactly like all the others left in the storeroom. Daud runs his hand along the top.

Something clatters to the floor. Something white, and black. Daud picks it up.

It’s bone.

He’s seen bonecharms before, of course. Used a few himself. Nearly everyone did, despite what the Abbey said about them. Most considered them harmless. And they were-mostly. But they made people stupid. When Daud, Billie, and Thomas were still living on the streets, a teenage boy they occasionally split rat skewers with got ahold of one and claimed it made him bulletproof. His friend shot him in the stomach and Daud had to get Billie and Thomas to sleep that night with the sound of his pained moaning and crying filling the cold air. He was dead by noon the next day.

Daud had gotten rid of his bonecharms after that. Not because they made him uncomfortable or anything, but because he forbade Billie from having them lest she do similar extremely dumb things and he didn’t want to be a hypocrite. Thomas wasn’t allowed them either, but he had been properly terrified by the event and was too young to think being an idiot was cool, so he wasn’t the one Daud was concerned about.

There’s a crack in the bone, blackened a bit around the edges. Did that mean it was no good? There’s still magic hiding in its etchings-Daud can _feel_ it thrum in his hand. But was it less powerful for the imperfection?

Daud slides the charm onto his belt. He figures Billie can sputter and call him a hypocrite all she wants from the Void. She’s earned that.

He Blinks out of the storeroom. The Talisman is sensing something else, in the direction of the mall. Another bonecharm, maybe.

Getting around outside is a different challenge, but there are enough steel beams and tall objects to suit him. He Blinks himself over to a dormant tree, holding onto the barren branches and leaning out to take stock.

The mill is deserted save for Ricardo, who is sweeping back leaves from the sidewalk while singing a little song himself. His voice is low, quiet, and Daud has to strain to hear the lyrics. He doesn’t understand the words, but he can tell it’s meant to be sad.

There’s a certain beauty to winter, he supposes. He’s always thought of it as a dead season, with plants shedding their unnecessary parts and curling up within themselves, cold seeping into coats and houses and people. But it is a time where things are quieter. Still, and silent.

_‘I knew this world. Parts of me remain, but the world seems...strange.’_

It was strange. Daud can barely believe it’s the same world he had a year ago. To him, he supposes, it wasn't.

Blinking over to the outbuilding Lizzy and Edgar used, Daud notices a skylight on the roof. He crouches and looks in, cupping his hands around his eyes to see past the late afternoon light.

Lizzy is fast asleep, half-sprawled off her cot. Daud considers knocking on the glass and scaring the crap out of her, but then he’d have to explain how he got on the roof. Another time.

From there, Daud can Blink straight up onto the roof of the mall. He crosses the top, taking great care to stay on his toes and not freak out everyone inside with his footsteps clobbering over their ceiling. The Talisman leads him to the end of the roof, where a bird has woven their nest. There’s no sign of the bird, and it’s too early for eggs, so Daud doesn’t feel too bad about disturbing it.

He can’t tell if it’s the stupidest bird on the world or the smartest, weaving a bonecharm into its nest. Could birds use magic? Smart if the bird recognized it. Stupid because now Daud wants it.

This bone is immaculate, no cracks or chips aside from the ones intentionally carved into it. This one felt...different, in a way Daud really can't describe.

There’s something else, down by the water. After quickly checking to ensure the canal is deserted, Daud Blinks down. He cautiously approaches the water, holding out the Talisman to guide him.

It’s stuck in the reeds, a thing of stark white bobbing in the water, tangled with brown. He’s close enough to hear it sing now, bouncing around in his ears like soft screams. Daud grabs it out of the water, shaking the dead kelp and seaweed free.

He recognizes the Outsider’s Mark, but other than that, he’s not sure exactly what he’s holding. A piece of carved whalebone. He was given one in the Void, but the memory seems hazy now, aside from a few snapshot moments. Like he had been held underwater during the entire ordeal. He’s seen one of these before. What was it? A walk on the beach. The Emperor actually spending an hour of his time with his daughter, Daud lurking behind and keeping watch. Billie had been drawn to something in the water and had waded out to get it, despite the Emperor complaining about her ruining her shoes and his own Protector darting about the shoreline like an anxious cat, like a wave would come crashing down any second she was out of reach and take their precious heiress with it.

She had been so excited about her find. Thought it was so cool, and she begged to be allowed to take it back, to decorate her room. The Emperor and his Royal Protector had exchanged nervous glances, and told her to throw it back. Billie had pouted the entire way back to the Tower.

A rune. That’s what the Outsider had called it. A heretical artifact that could get a person taken away by the Abbey if they were found in the possession of one. A poor person, that is. The daughter of an Emperor would have been immune to such treatment, so Daud wasn’t entirely sure what they had been worried about.

The Talisman shudders in his hand, and Billie’s voice startles him.

_‘Death. I feel only death from the one who watches you.’_

Watching him? There was no one out here. But Billie could see things he couldn’t, that much he knew. Daud tucks the rune into his shirt and takes another look around. The canal and the streets around it are still empty. Silent. Still as the Void.

He makes short work of Blinking back up to the rooftop. He continues to watch the streets, trying to detect any sort of movement. Billie stays quiet. Finally, he sighs and lets his muscles relax. He didn’t know what that was, but it had to be gone now. Perhaps just a passerby.

Daud turns around and is nearly startled back by black feathers and beady eyes, standing on the remnants of the nest. A little black crow. Watching him.

For a moment, Daud doesn’t breathe. The crow is still, examining him with knowing eyes. Then the crow cocks its head at him, lets out one shrill caw and flies away.

 

* * *

 

Daud spends the rest of the afternoon in his attic, checking and double-checking his equipment. Ensuring he had extra ammo, that his gun and wristbow hadn’t suddenly ceased to function. Paul had slipped him some extra elixir, claiming Thalia had enough to keep her plague-free for a decade, so he now had seven vials of the stuff slid into little pockets sewn into his coat. He had room for twenty, though half of them were a bit more narrow. Jerome explained to him there was another elixir on the market, cheaper than Sokolov’s but still worked quite well.

He also has pockets now. Daud is relieved about that.

Daud took it upon himself to make his way to the canal when the time came. He didn’t feel like having to deal with a servant fetching him, having Thalia fuss over the details and ordering him around. Daud didn’t exactly dislike Thalia-but she was an aristocrat, and a teenage one at that. She was only older than Thomas by a few short months. She had no idea how jobs like this worked, what people like him were capable of. She was best off staying out of it.

He keeps an eye out for Granny Rags as he makes his way through the mall, but he can’t see her. Just as well. He slips out the door without a fuss.

Lizzy is already in the skiff, her face halfway between bored and annoyed. She’s arguing with Rose, who’s standing on the dock with her hands on her hips. Daud approaches cautiously.

“And I’m just telling you not to manhandle my little brother!” Rose yells, leaning over the water. “You’re always so rude to him. What in the Void did he ever do to you?”

Lizzy sticks her pinky finger is her ear. “Outsider’s ass, all I was doing was getting him away from crazy Granny Rags. I was trying to  _help_ him.” She takes her finger out and rubs it together with her pointer, flicking the crud into the water.

“Well, don’t. We can take care of ourselves.”

Daud decides it’s safe enough for him to appear now. “Something wrong, ladies?” he asks as he approaches. Lizzy rolls her eyes and looks away. Rose, as predicted, straightens up and clasps her hands together in front.

“Daud,” she says, eyes big and nervous. Daud still can’t tell if she’s enamored with him or afraid of him. Maybe a little of both.

Lizzy audibly cracks her neck. “Well, sun’s going down. Daud and I have to get going. That’s your cue to leave, Rose-garden.” She ends with a pointed look in Rose’s direction. Daud solemnly nods and turns to get in the boat.

“Wait!”

He pauses. Rose looks to the ground, her hands finding one of her dreadlocks and tugging on it nervously. “I-I know you don’t have any reason to listen to me. And you’ll have other things to worry about tonight that fulfilling my request, I just, I-”

“Spit it out.” Daud says gruffly.

Rose blinks, hands dropping from her hair to clasp together at her chest. She meets his eye then. “You’re going to kill Luca Abele tonight, at the Captain’s Chair.”

“Or he might be at the Golden Cat,” Lizzy adds from the skiff. Then, in a lower voice, “He’ll probably be at the whorehouse.”

Rose nods quickly. “Yes. I heard the briefing. But I didn’t tell Thalia and Edgar this, and I doubt they would know otherwise.” She rocks back on her heels for a moment. “My brother will most likely be with Luca.”

Daud blinks. “Your brother.”

“My other brother,” Rose corrects herself, quickly. “My twin. His name is Joshua. He’s been...working, for Luca for the past few months.”

“Oh.” Daud doesn’t need her to elaborate. “I see.”

Rose hurries herself along. “He’s been keeping constant company with Abele since he was sold off. But he's _not_ loyal to him, nor the Regent, believe me.”

“You want me to rescue him.”

To Daud’s surprise, Rose shakes her head. “No. Joshua can take care of himself. We made plans, in case we were separated, so he’ll be okay on his own. I just, I beg you-” Rose raises her hands to her chest. “Just don’t kill him. If you can get him out of the Captain’s Chair, he can slip by the guards and disappear. You won’t need to worry about him squealing on you. Just, please, please give him a chance.”

Daud places his hand over her own, pushing them down. He locks eyes with her for a long moment. She’s still fearful, and there’s still a despair in her eyes that Daud can relate to. But there’s also a hope he could never dash.

“I’ll do what I can,” He promises.

Rose instantly relaxes. _"Thank_ you.” She steps backwards. “Joshua was just a tad taller than me last time I saw him, but you should see the similarities. If you see a guy who looks like somebody put a pair of spectacles on a grasshopper, that’s him.”

She turns and runs then, scampering away so quickly her shoes kick up dust. Daud waits until she makes it back into the mall before jumping down into the skiff.

Lizzy is looking at him oddly. Daud scratches his nose. “What.”

She shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, starting the skiff. “You’re just really not what I expected.”

Daud leans back, scanning the sky for the stars that will make themselves known at any moment. “I get that a lot.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're killing Luca first because I hate him. That's pretty much it. I hate his face so he's the first to die. Karma's a bitch, bitch.
> 
> As it turns out, combining the cryptic bullshittery of the Heart lines with Billie's own bad attitude and pessimism is pretty much impossible. I did the best I could, but I'm still working out a good balance I like. This Billie has had a better education than canon Billie, but she's still the same old bitch we love.
> 
> So apparently I was wrong when I stated that Billie is 24. But the actual DH wiki is also wrong, so whatever. Billie indeed turns 24 in 1837, but she was born on the 2nd day of the Month of Hearths. Dishonored mostly take place in the Month of High Cold and the Month of Ice, and the events of KoD would be early in that timeline. So she would still be 23 when we see her in the DLC. There's a couple of mistakes like that, like how Emily would have been nine during the assassination of her mother and 24 during DH2, but the developers still considered her 10 and 25. (unless it works differently in the DH world and people change their ages on the new year instead of their birthdays, I don't know) As far as this AU goes: Billie was 23 at the time of her assassination. Daud turned 42 in prison. Thomas turned 17 while Daud was off getting scurvy on a boat.
> 
> I can't tell if the Dishonored fandom is just dead already or what, but I'm having fun writing this so I'll keep at it until I'm not, I suppose.


	5. House of Pleasure Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Sebastian the Crab as an 1830's mob boss. Daud turns into Batman for a bit. Galvani gets robbed.

Daud watches the sun melt into the river with his chin resting against the rim of the boat. He can’t stop remembering that his execution was supposed to be this morning. That he was living on borrowed time.

“You’ve seen those walls of light, haven’t you Daud?” Lizzy breaks the silence as she steers them towards the banks.

Daud pushes himself up and rubs his chin. “Rings a bell. Remind me.”

“Sokolov invention." She scoffs in disdain. "Only that mad bastard could find a way to make a glorified whale oil lamp disintegrate people.”

Right. He remembered now. The invention had made waves throughout court, many thinking they were a fantastic device and praised the ingenuity. Billie, however, was properly horrified and had them banned.

Delilah _would_ think they were an acceptable means of controlling the city, however. She must have lifted the ban. All in the name of keeping order.

Daud could laugh at that. Order. That was Dunwall’s highest priority now.

“I remember when he presented the invention to the Empress,” Daud grumbles. He’s remembering the look on Billie’s face when Sokolov threw a live rat into it. Her eyes wide and face positively green, an impressive color for someone with skin as dark as hers.

“So you know not to try your luck running through them.” Lizzy says, her eyes still trained on the water. “There’s two set up on Clavering now. Watch assholes activate them every night after curfew. During the day you can just waltz on up the street to get where you need to go, but then, there’d also be dozens of people out and about, and everybody knows your face.” Lizzy turns around then and flashes him a grin.

Daud rolls his eyes. “So I need to bypass the gates. They run on whale oil, right?”

“Yep. Should power right down if you can take out the battery. They have chargers that keep track of who gets zapped and who doesn’t, but I’ve heard you practically need to be an Academy philosopher to figure out how to fuck with it. They sell rewire tools on the black market that’ll do it for you, in case you come across one.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” Daud has his own ideas for getting past the gates.

“We can check with Jerome and see if he can get his hands on one.” The boat comes to a shudder as the bottom of the skiff hits sand. Lizzy turns off the engine and jumps out. “If we had a few extra days like we planned, I coulda gotten one to you for this.” She grunts as she pulls the skiff into the bank.

Daud gets out too and helps push, but he doesn’t think he’s much help. Lizzy’s a lot stronger than she looks. At least his boots seem to be waterproof, which is a welcome discovery.

“I take it you remember where Holger Square is?” Lizzy steps back, satisfied with her work, and lights up a cigarette. “You probably been there more than I have.”

“I’ve had to accompany the Empress a few times. I know the area.” He always hated it when Billie had to deal with the Abbey. She usually forced the High Overseer to travel to Dunwall Tower himself if she needed to meet with him, but she’s had to go to them a few times. Mostly to give speeches and the like. She hated them too.

“Cool, cool.” Lizzy nods, tapping ash into the sand. “Swing by there and pick up Zhukov. And I’m just warning you now that he’s fucking weird. Sorry in advance.”

“I’ve dealt with worse, trust me.” Daud flips his sword over a few times in his hand. He wants to bum a cigarette from Lizzy, light up before he leaves, but part of him is running on cold anger. If he lets that stress dissipate, he’s going to tire out a lot faster. Maybe afterwards.

Lizzy wanders over to a makeshift fire, an iron garbage can turned upside-down caging it up. There are no beach-side campers about, so it must be from earlier in the day. “You ever been to the Golden Cat? Word in the barracks is that you don’t really get your dick wet all that much.” She makes a face as Daud grimaces. “But there are, you know, _rumors_ about the Empress’s preferences. Maybe you accompanied her on a little trip?”

“Billie did not employ the services of prostitutes, I assure you.” Daud crosses his arms. He knows Billie had more than a few affairs, and to his knowledge they were all with women. But she steered away from the servants, despite the slim pickings in Dunwall’s court. She confessed once that she didn’t like the imbalance, that it made her uncomfortable to court someone she had so much power over. She would certainly feel the same way about anyone she paid for their services, Daud has no doubt.

And now he was thinking about Delilah, the things she had said to him. Daud purses his lips. He had a responsibility to ensure her partners weren’t planning to murder her in her sleep, but beyond that, her private life was none of his business. He trusted her to be smart about it. Smarter.

But Lizzy just shoots him a very stupid-looking grin. “That you know of, right?”

Daud glares harder. Lizzy shrugs and looks away. “Outsider’s ass, I’m just teasing. You can’t tell me she didn’t ever sneak out. Every teenager does it.”

“I know she did.” He grumbles under his breath. Then, louder, “To answer your question, no, I’ve never been to the Golden Cat. I’ll gladly accept any information you’ve gleaned from your visits, though.”

“Ouch.” Lizzy presses a hand to her chest and laughs. “I’ll have you know that there’s no shortage of ladies willing to jump in bed with me for free. Or guys. They all drop their panties when I walk into a room.”

“I’m sure.”

She drops her cigarette in the sand and buries it with her bare foot. “There’s plenty of fake plants and stupid decorations to hide behind. You shouldn’t have a problem sneaking around if you’re careful.” She crouches and holds her hands over the fire. “I’ve never been to the Captain’s Chair, though. Luca will probably be whoring it up, but you’ll still have to break in there and get your hands on his papers.”

“And find that third Copper.”

“Right. Him too.” Lizzy sighs. “I’ve heard a lot of rumors about Abele. What he...you know, _does_ to his whores. You’re probably not going to find that kid in great shape.”

“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.” Daud says harshly. Lizzy waves her hand.

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying bring him back here if he’s really fucked up," she spits. "I know Rose said he’d be fine on his own, and Thalia will bitch about having another mouth to feed, but if he’s too banged up to walk you might as well just kill him. We’d be leaving him for the rats.”

Daud watches Lizzy out of the corner of his eye, and thinks on how Lizzy can be different from what people expected too. “You really like those kids.”

“Fuck off. They’re little shits, but they deserve better.” She groans, tilts her head back to look at the sky. “Lot of ‘em do.”

Daud thinks about Ricardo. Paul, Lydia. What Billie had told him about Reed. They did. They all did. Maybe he and Thomas could change things for them. “Where are their parents? Rose said her brother was sold as a slave.”

“Their mother was killed by Overseers or something. Maybe they sold him.” Lizzy scratches her chin. “I thought slavery was supposed to be illegal.”

“It is.” Daud puts his sword back in its sheath. “It was outlawed long before you were born.” Enslaving citizens of the Empire, at least. Pandyssian natives quite literally weren’t considered people and didn’t enjoy those protections. Even Billie, who most certainly had Pandyssian blood from her mother’s side, didn’t even try to wrestle with that. Dunwall wasn’t ready for that kind of progressiveness. Not now. Not yet.

Lizzy scoffs. “Well, you can make all the damn rules you want. Doesn’t do shit if Empresses and Emperors just ignore it.”

Daud bites his tongue.

“Anyway, you better get going.” Lizzy plops herself down in the sand. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

Daud says nothing. He just Blinks away, perching himself on a lamppost nearby. He watches Lizzy as she looks behind herself and notices his absence, then shakes her head. Hears her mumbling of “fucking weirdo.” Then he’s on his way.

 

* * *

 

He can see the outlines of guards up on the bridge, hear the rumble of a boat’s engine. The guards pick something up and swing it over the edge, letting it fall onto the back of the boat.

Daud’s stomach drops when he realizes it’s a corpse.

He Blinks from pipe to railing to lamp post. Positions himself over the group, listening in. A third guard is standing off to the side, scribbling away at a clipboard. They all have black and white masks covering their mouths, as if that was going to protect against the plague. A pile of corpses wrapped in shrouds on the side of the road.

“Wait.” Daud freezes. One of the guards looks over the railing. “I think that one was still moving.”

“Nonsense. I inspected them all myself.” Clipboard Guy says without raising his eyes.

“Well, he ain’t moving no more,” The other guard says with a laugh. The others join in.

There’s anger welling up in Daud’s stomach. The carelessness. The disrespect. The _stupidity._

And the recurring thought that _Billie could have handled this better._

For a moment, he wants nothing more than to see these guards bleed, to watch their smug faces turn to fear as they realized they were not, in fact, above death. That they were no better than the poor sods they were shipping off to Outsider-knows-where.

Daud puts a hand on his blade. He wishes the Outsider had gifted him with some sort of wind power, so he could Blink behind them and blow them all off the bridge at once. Let them fall to their deaths, join the pile of the dead waiting for them in the boat. Even without that, Daud should have no problem dispatching these three. Fall on one and kill him before the others can respond. Use his wristbow to incapacitate one, Blink behind the other. Push him off the bridge. Deal with the third before they can even get up. But then he catches himself.

These are, for all intents and purposes, Thomas’s subjects now. One day very soon, Thomas will be their Emperor, and while Daud may never have to explain to him why he chose to kill his citizens, Daud will think on it every time they speak. That these people posed no danger to him. That they were not obstructing him in any way, that killing them would not put him any closer to saving Thomas. They were just men trying to do their jobs and go home. And whether they were really that cavalier about the plague dead or simply trying to cope isn’t something he’s equipped to judge.

Sighing, Daud takes his hand off his blade. And when he Blinks behind Clipboard Guy while the other two guards toss another corpse over, it’s to pick his pocket and glance over his shoulder at his papers.

He was keeping count of the dead. Not names, but where they were from. The date of the pick-up. Rounded up for transport to the Flooded District.

Daud ruminates on this as he Blinks to the top of another lamppost. Why were they taking the dead all the way to Rudshore? It wasn’t that far from the Distillery District, sure, but it was farther than it needed to be. So many points of contact, between the dead and those who moved them. So many opportunities for the disease to spread. Yes, Rudshore was virtually abandoned now, but so were entire blocks of the city as their inhabitants dropped dead. And what about after the plague? Did Delilah ever intend to drain the district? What would she do with all the bones that would be left?

No forward thinking. Billie may have been impulsive, short-sighted and even shorter tempered, but Daud and Thomas had rounded her out nicely. She never would have gone forward with such a rash decision. And she was never this stupid. Delilah had no business handling this.

Daud takes the Talisman out to hear Billie’s own thoughts on the matter, but she seems to be preoccupied elsewhere. _‘Dunwall is supposed to be a proud city. And maybe it was, not long ago. But I see none of it here.’_

He clenches his fist and lets the Talisman fade away.

The wall of light shimmers under the moon. There are guards spotted around the intersection, looking bored. Daud can see the canister of whale oil powering the machine. It would only take one gunshot or, hell, one flick of his wristbow to destroy it and dart through the gate. There was an alternative route down Bottle Street, he knew, but the Distillery itself was home to a gang, and the gangs only got stronger with the plague. Best to avoid.

As it was, Daud has a fairly good plan as to getting past the wall. Most security systems counted on people being bound to the ground. An oversight he is all too willing to exploit. Daud Blinks onto the top of the gate and looks over Clavering Boulevard, pausing to pick up a few feathers left there by a kingsparrow.

That puts him a good three stories above the guards, which he knows from the stacked balconies on the house to his left. The lamps lining the street are a step down from his perch, but still high enough that he won’t be caught in any guard’s peripheral vision. Unless they look up, but as far as Daud can tell, people don’t bother.

He Blinks to a nearby lamppost and surveys the block. There are guards milling about, but plenty of places to hide. Crates of supplies stacked three high, one decommissioned railcar on the side of the road. At the far end of the street was a second wall of light, this time pushed back and contained within an enclave. Daud can see the tubes feeding whale oil into the machine, but he can’t see the tank. The wall, the actual brick and concrete wall that the checkpoint is built into, is topped with a spiked fence. Daud grimaces. He’ll have to find a way around.

Daud looks around for possible alternative routes. The plaque on the large, multi-balconied house catches his eye. Golden, shiny, and emblazoned with **OFFICES OF DR. GALVANI**.

Lizzy would tell him not to bother. That Granny Rags was off her rocker, and all he’d find were antique rings and maybe a cameo that looked nice thirty years ago. And she was probably right. If it had been another mentally-unsound old lady telling him to go dig up her treasures, Lizzy would be right.

But Granny Rags was...different. Daud hesitates to call her a witch-he’s known real witches, and Granny didn’t fit the bill. Still, there’s a heaviness in the air around her. Something that tingles of power, and feels altogether too familiar for comfort.

Daud Blinks over to the second story balcony.

He can hear the singing as soon as he opens the door, but it's a muted thing. He tries to ignore it. Surveys the empty lounge he’s found himself in. The bones aren’t in here. Daud can hear them getting louder, but they’re still too far away, even as he hits the corner where their song is the strongest. He brings out the Talisman, squeezes it, and sees something glowing and orange above him.

_‘The thinkers of this city-they work constantly on ways to manipulate the elements to their will, never understanding the balance they threaten.’_

“You’re not being very helpful, Bils,” Daud mumbles.

He’d have to head upstairs. Daud creeps along the floor of the lounge, noting the decorative pistols Galvani had hung over his fireplace. He takes them down and checks them on a whim, finding they each have a bullet loaded into them. He purposely doesn’t put the now-empty pistols back onto the display board out of annoyance. Waste of ammo aside, how irresponsible was it, to put those where his patients could get ahold of them? Did he treat children here?

The door is made of glass, and Daud is careful to stay back as he looks out. Just one guard with his back turned, examining a particularly ugly painting, and one maid winding a clock. There’s also a lamp hanging above them, and if Daud can aim his Blink just right…

Daud pushes the door open and wastes no time Blinking to the top of the lamp. Both the guard and the maid jump at the door opening, seemingly, by itself. They look nervously at each other.

“I told you this place is haunted,” the maid says, turning back to the clock. “It’s usually upstairs. I’ll hear noises and things coming from Luigi’s lab when there’s no one in there.”

“I said I believed you. Timsh’s place is haunted too. Kept hearing footsteps in the attic when I was posted there, but that’s been sealed off since the house was built. Bunch of us refuse to be posted there anymore.”

“Makes sense for _him_ to have angry ghosts,” the maid mutters. The guard steps towards the door and the maid snaps around. “Wait! Did you touch the door handle to Galvani’s lab?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Then you have to wash your hands! You could contaminate the rest of the house!”

The guard scoffs. “Come on, you don’t really believe that witch-doctor stuff? The rats spread the plague, not invisible little specks.”

The maid puts her hands on her hips. “Well, who should I believe on the matter? A natural philosopher who studied disease at the Academy, or a man who joined the Watch so he could avoid finishing secondary school?”

“Is this what it’s going to be like when we’re married? It is, isn’t it?” The guard gestures angrily, while his fiancee rolls her eyes. The guard throws up his hands and turns away. “Void, fine. If it will really make you happy. I don’t know what you see in that guy.”

“He’s the man who’s going to save the city!” The maid replies as she follows him into the bathroom, arguing all the way. Daud takes the opportunity to Blink to the staircase and disappear up the spiral while they’re out of the room, shaking his head all the way. He’s never understood why people bothered getting married. No one ever seemed happy about it.

A quick activation of Void Gaze, as he’s named it, shows him that the third floor is deserted. And that those bones are burning a literal hole in his retinas. He sneaks into the lab and takes care to let the door click closed behind him. He figures he probably has more plague on his gloves from the river water than whatever Galvani has on his door handles.

Daud gravitates towards the corner where the bones sing the loudest. They are so, so loud. He can hardly concentrate on looking for the damn things. All that was back here was a dingy bookshelf.

Did Granny Rags hide her charms behind the bookshelf? Daud tries to pry it from the wall, but it doesn’t budge.

What exactly had she said about her hiding place? Daud can’t remember-he couldn’t be fucked to pay attention at the time.

He starts rifling through the books. Maybe she hid them between the pages or something. If all else failed, he could take his sword and break through the back of the bookcase. He tugs on one book, and looks up at it in confusion when it sticks. Suddenly, the entire bookshelf begins to move, and Daud has to jump away to avoid being squished.

Galvani’s secret room held a dissection table, under which was the source of the singing. Daud wastes no time in dropping to his knees and pulling out the little metal wastebasket.

What greets him is the motherlode of heretical artifacts. Daud rifles the totems around, each one quieting as his flesh meets bone. He counts six charms, and one rune at the very bottom of the pile.

Daud takes each charm out and carefully lines them up on the table, slipping the rune into his breast pocket. Three charms gnarled and cracked like the one he’d found in the mill earlier, the other three pristine. Daud swipes them all into his pocket.

He doesn’t know what they do, but he can’t leave them behind.

Now that his head is clear and quiet, Daud can take proper stock of his surroundings. The secret lab was hidden within a larger one, with a long table filled with beakers and books and all sorts of sciencey nonsense. Chalkboards with scribbles, cabinets filled with vials of red and blue. Daud nicks one red Sokolov’s elixir and three of the blue, tucking them away in his coat.

Galvani’s office sits off to the side, a large audiograph machine sitting on top of the desk. Daud presses the punch card in and listens to Galvani’s musings as he rifles through the desk. Some money and knick-knacks that he shoves into his coat, though seeing Billie’s face on the coins makes his heart thrum painfully in his chest. The rest is all papers and bullshit, research on the plague, just like the information on the audiograph. Not useful to him.

The audiograph finishes and Daud stands up, ready to go. He’s about to exit out the third-story balcony when he hears a woman’s scream.

Daud is out of the lab in an instant. There’s a gunshot, making him wince, followed by the sound of pleading. Daud perches himself on the railing and leans down to peer at the second floor landing.

The maid from earlier is one the floor, one hand raised up to shield her face. Her fiance is leaned up against the wall, nose bloody and his eyes closed but, as far as Daud can tell, alive. There’s a bullet hole in the wall to the side of his head, the wood still smoking.

A group of burly men in suspenders stand between them. One still holding a pistol to the guard’s unconscious head, two hanging back, and another leaning down to yell in the maid’s face. “He won’t miss the next time! Just give us the damn safe code!”

“Two eight seven! I already told you!” The maid cries.

The man slaps her across the face. “That was the old safe code! He’s gotta have changed it by now!”

“No! I promise, that’s the code, if you let me up I-”

Daud flicks his wrist and a green dart shoots out, sinking into the maid’s stomach. She babbles for a second, then her head lolls back. Daud draws his sword and drops onto the lower railing, perching himself on the edge while the men look confused.

“Leave her be.”

Daud voice still crinkles, and he’s not as loud as he’d prefer to be. Still, the harsh whisper must have been somewhat intimidating, as the men startle and snap their heads to him.

Then Daud realizes it may not have been the smartest decision to give Lizzy the only mask.

“Shit.” One of the men wipes his palms on his trousers. “You’re Daud.”

Daud says nothing. His eyes sweep over the rest of the men, daring them to say something.

He hopes they say something. Because the alternative is taking on all four of them in one swordfight, which Daud will almost certainly not escape unscathed from. Even if he wins, he’ll likely be wounded before he’s even started his real work. That would be fun explaining to Lizzy.

The tension, however, is broken when a door outside of Daud’s view opens and a woman’s voice comes from the end of the hallway. “Hey, bitch was telling the truth. He never-” She stops short, coming around the corner and turning her head at what had her partners shitting their pants. She’s dressed in the same get-up as the others, shirt rolled up to the elbows and baggy trousers with suspenders, her hair cut short. She’s as tall as their shortest guy, and looks just as strong. Daud internally groans. Five on one. Great.

Daud turns back to the group. “So you got the safe open. Take what you came for and get out.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off Daud, but one of the men does lean towards the woman and whispers to her. “You find what we lookin’ for?”

The woman shakes her head, never looking away. “Just some cash. And this weird statue of a wolfhound.”

“Did you take the statue?”

“Fuck, why would I?”

Daud holds up a hand. “If you’re not looking for money, then why are you here?”

The question seems to put the group at ease. They visibly relax, even exchange glances with one another, though they still shuffle around warily. The guy holding the gun pipes up. “His research. On the cure,” he explains. “Our boss wants anything he has on the plague.”

Daud blinks. “You have some secret natural philosopher stowed away? What good is research to you?”

The man standing over the maid seems to find his voice. “We got people we can get it to. People just as smart as Galvoochie, and aren’t stuck up some noble’s ass.” He steps forward and sweeps his arm out to the side. “You don’t know what it’s like in Dunwall now. Nobody’s lookin’ out for the little guy. We gotta take these matters in our own hands.”

“The Regent’s stopped handing out elixir rations to us civvies,” The tallest member explains, un-twisting one suspender. “And it’s no secret she hasn’t bothered to replace Sokolov to work on a cure. All research is considered private projects, and we don’t see shit from that.”

“And I guess you blame me for all that.” Daud stares them down. The group shuffles nervously under his glare, exchanging brief, uncomfortable glances with one another. Finally, Daud sighs and jumps down from the railing. “Galvani’s lab is upstairs. Go take whatever you need, just leave the bystanders alone.”

Three of them exchange glances before shuffling past him, running up the stairs as fast as their legs can take them. Daud walks around to the unconscious guard, bending at the waist to check his vitals. The woman watches him with a careful eye, as does the only man who hasn’t uttered a word yet.

The guard is okay, might have a wicked headache for a few days, but he was still breathing. The maid would sleep for an hour and wake up feeling groggy for the next few after that, but would otherwise be fine. Daud stands up straight, turning back to the two gangsters. The last man, the one who Daud has yet to hear speak, clears his throat. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”

Daud stares a hole between the man’s eyes. “No.”

The gangster breaks the gaze then, looking to the floor. “We all wondered,” he admits, biting his lip. “Didn’t seem...you know, like you. You had no reason to kill her.”

“And nobody trust that Regent,” The woman responds, nodding her head.

Daud says nothing. The man shifts on his feet again, but looks at Daud’s face this time. “Look, I don’t know if you’re in this district just to raise hell or protect the Empress’s honor or some such shit, but the boss is going to want to see you.”

“The boss.” Daud does his best to pin him to the floor with his glare.

The gangster, however, seems oblivious and just nods. “Yeah. Slackjaw. He wants to talk to all the big players who come through his territory.”

“This is nobody’s territory but the city’s, and Dunwall belongs to the crown.” Daud is tired. He really wants a cigarette now.

The man holds up his hands. “You know what I mean.” He puts them down and goes on before Daud can argue more. “Slackjaw will be holed up in the distillery for the night. We’re the Bottle Street Boys,” he says proudly, pointing his thumbs at himself. The woman coughs beside him. “And Liz.”

“There’s like, five Bottle Street _Girls_ too, you bastard.” She punches him in the arm good-naturedly, then turns back to Daud. “Girls are worth money in the Distillery District. Parents just sell ‘em to the brothels instead of tossing them out on their asses like most of the guys were. We can raise hell with the rest of ‘em just fine.”

“So you’re saying next time we need recruits, we should raid the Golden Cat?”

“At the end of Bottle Street?” Daud interrupts. “I’ll find my own way. Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

Bottle Street is a disaster site, litter on the streets and a rat for every three pieces of trash on the ground. Piles of the plague dead every couple of feet, it seemed like, wrapped in sheets and restrained with rope. All watched over by large signs with warnings of danger and sickness splashed across them in blood red.

Some of the corpses still move. Daud presses on and tells himself it’s just rats.

He doesn’t bother with the front door. He’d rather not have to deal with any other members of the gang besides Slackjaw. Realistically, he knows this could all be a set-up. They might have sent him to Slackjaw knowing full well he would kill Daud. And even if not, he couldn’t count on everyone here doubting the official story. Some people must believe the Regent’s version. Which meant there were a lot of angry people out there blaming him for killing the Empress and starting this chain of events.

Daud tries to remember if he’s heard of Slackjaw before. He knew about the Bottle Street gang, of course, but they weren’t a priority. Dealing with gang violence was mostly left to the discretion of the Watch, as the Empress couldn’t devote her attention to every band of thugs that popped up and gave themselves a name, but Billie liked to be informed. If Slackjaw was a crime boss of note, then Billie would definitely have heard of him.

For the first time, Daud wishes he had paid more attention to the content of her meetings. He was always focused on his job. Never stopped taking it seriously, not for a second, never slipped into that comfort zone and let his guard drop. Keeping an eye out for sharp, concealed objects hidden in a visitor’s coat, a petitioner moving as if getting ready to make a run at her, an advisor with a poisoned needle sewn into the hem of their sleeve. And always, always watching her.

And what good was that now? All things that happened, all things he stopped. But Billie was still dead. It only took one failure. One time he lost focus, one assassin that made it past him. And Billie’s life was forfeit.

Daud gives the Talisman a squeeze, looking out over the Distillery yard. Men wander about, all with either a bottle or a gun in their hand. Sometimes both. A bad combination.

_‘Yes, this place is home to murderers and thieves. Are we not becoming just that?’_

Daud is silent for a moment. Then he jumps off the piping and Blinks.

He Blinks from perch to perch a few times, waiting for his magical energy to come back to him. The men on the ground are none the wiser. He Blinks onto the wall that separates the yard in half and nearly falls off of it when a crow flaps its wings at him and flies off.

“Fucking corvids,” he mutters. He hadn’t even seen the damn thing.

He passes by a literal cage filled with men half hunched over and stumbling about, moaning and weeping red. Plague victims. There was no cure at this stage, when victims appear to cry blood. They would die. The only question was how long they would suffer first.

It would be smarter to kill carriers at this point, kinder. And it was stupid to keep them so close to people who were still healthy. These people have been claimed by the plague. They were already dead. There was no point in keeping them close and pretending otherwise.

The inside of the distillery is less populated. There’s nobody guarding the front, so they obviously aren’t expecting him. Daud Blinks up to one of the brewers and takes stock of the floor.

All the men are clustered around...something. Something that looks distinctively like coffins. White, wooden coffins. One sealed shut, the other open and showing off its padded lining.

Odd. Nobody was buried in a coffin in Dunwall these days. Too few resources, too many bodies to bury. It would be easy enough to hide a murder victim with the rest of the deceased, so they weren’t doing that. Who would be so important as to garner a proper funeral during the plague?

He thinks on Billie’s funeral. He’d been fed details, purely to further his own suffering, about the closed casket ceremony and the stuffy inscription on her tomb that she never would have picked out for herself. The Empress was probably the only person to get a full service in the past year.

Daud Blinks by to the landing at the top of the stairs on the far wall. Void Gaze shows him three guys in the back hallway, and three more in a smaller room on the floor below. One of them has to be Slackjaw. So six people in all, more if they made enough of a ruckus to attract the people on the brewery floor. Not horrible odds. This was still reckless and pointless, though.

He could start killing, weed out opponents in case a trap is sprung. Might be smarter. But he’d rather not start fights if there’s a possibility of an ally, however slim.

There’s one guy doing inventory with his back to the door when Daud creeps in, but he throws a bottle and darts by when the guy goes to investigate.

Daud hides high up in a keg rack, leaning out to survey the area. Two guards patrolling the wine racks, though that was an ambitious term for their action. They were sufficiently drunk and distracted with each other. Not a threat. Slackjaw’s office had no door, just a barred gate meant more for restricting access than real privacy. There's also a gap under one of the kegs that made up the wall, so he could slide through there easy enough. There was just the question of how Slackjaw would react, if he-

He appears at the gate. It has to be him. Could be no one else. Slackjaw swings the door open and lets it bang against the brick wall. He steps forward and opens his arms. “I know yer here, Daud. Why don’t we be friends?”

Daud is frozen. He hadn’t been seen. He’s confident in that. Then how? One of the guys from Galvani’s house could have feasibly sprinted back here and warned Slackjaw about Daud’s coming. But that wouldn’t account for Slackjaw knowing he was here now.

Slackjaw isn’t looking at his hiding spot. He isn’t searching, but it’s clear he doesn’t know where to put his eyes. He knows Daud is present, but he doesn't know where Daud _is._

The guards twist their heads around, confused and slightly frightened. Slackjaw sighs and leans his side against the wall. “Nah tricks, I promise. I just want tuh talk. Come on out, Daud.”

Daud sets his mouth in a grim line and jumps. He sticks the landing with minimal joint pain, only making slightly more noise than he would have expected from himself a year ago. Both the guards jump. Slackjaw, however, just raises an eyebrow at him.

“Holy shit.” One of the guards jumps back. Daud doesn’t break his glare, just keeps his eyes locked on Slackjaw’s face. “You’re...you’re…”

“He’s Daud, you idiot.” There’s the sound of his friend hitting him in the head, then a weapon unsheathing. “That’s what boss-man just said.”

“But it’s him! This is all his fault, the damn plague and the curfew! All because he had to go and kill the Empress!”

“Oi, fuck off with that,” Slackjaw yells. “Don’t be believin’ everythin’ ya hear. Daud didn’t kill no Empress.” He turns back to Daud, a smile playing across his lips. “Didn’t you, Daud? That’s just part of the big lie. You wouldn’t of hurt a hair on our fair Empress’s head.”

Daud grits his teeth and says nothing. Slackjaw knows nothing. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know Daud, has no way of knowing shit. He’s running off hunches and half-baked theories. Daud doesn’t trust him. And he owes Slackjaw no explanation.

Besides, referring to Billie as ‘fair’ already has him rubbed wrong. She was far too dark to ever be considered fair. He knew it was just what you called Empresses, but Billie had always hated it. It was a constant reminder that while she sat on a throne and could wear crown jewels, she did not fit what the Empress was supposed to be and supposed to look like.

Ironically, Thomas was indeed very fair himself, but that word was seldom used to describe Emperors. Nobody would be calling him that. Except maybe Daud, to tease him.

To the side, the guard scoffs. “Sure, he didn’t. Twenty witnesses just imagined the whole thing. He was just standing over her body with a bloody blade for no reason.”

Twenty witnesses? Delilah was spinning some high tale, wasn’t she.

“Lies are whorish little bastards. You bring in a few o’ them, and they’ll start spawnin’ their own.” Slackjaw waves Daud in. “Go cool yer head. Daud and Slackjaw got some big boy business to be attendin’ to.”

The guards grumble. Slackjaw turns around without sparing a glance back. After a moment of hesitation, Daud follows.

There’s no one else inside. Daud looks around, but he can’t find any sign of the other two people that had been in here. Slackjaw is already at his desk when Daud enters, standing off to the side and rifling through drawers. “Smoke?” he offers, holding up a tin of cigars. Daud’s fingers itch for it, but he shakes his head. Slackjaw shrugs and shoves one in his mouth. “I’d offer you a drink, but you look like a man on a mission.”

Daud folds his arms. There’s nowhere to really hide in here either-perhaps under the desk, but he doubts two adults could fit under there, especially considering one looked taller than Slackjaw. They must have left, but how did he not notice?

Slackjaw fishes a lighter out of his pants pocket, though he doesn’t use it right away. Instead he takes his unlit cigar out of his mouth and gestures with it. “No, yer here on the Empress’s business. Takin’ down this little ring of treech-ari that took her out of the game. And the only person worth your time in my part of town is that Abele bastard. Am I right?” He seems to take Daud’s silence as agreement, and slides his cigar back between his teeth. “See,” he says, flicking his lighter on the word. “Slackjaw knows.”

He lights the cigar, blowing the smoke out as he surveys Daud’s face and posture. “Now, I think I can help you out with that. Whaddya say, to making a deal with ol’ Slackjaw? Ain’t even askin’ fo’ much in return-just a bit of amnesty when your old boy’s on the throne.” He pronounces ‘amnesty’ wrong, with the inflection on the first syllable, and a hard ‘a’. “Really, more of a favor. Slackjaw’ll take care of Abele for you, nice an’ clean. You don’t even gotta touch ‘im. We shake on it, and you can be on yer merry little way.”

“What do you get out of it?” Daud spits out. “Why would you do that for me?”

Slackjaw purses his lips for a moment, and looks off into the distance. “Aye. Just...some-ting I owe the old girl, you know?”

Daud says nothing. Billie always felt she didn’t do enough for the poor-Daud would point out she _couldn’t_ , that her court was quick enough already to question her judgment and that Parliament pitched a fit whenever she didn’t skew things heavily enough in their favor. But she tried. And Daud knew she was making a difference.

He only wishes she could see now what impact she had.

Daud blinks, forces himself to clear his head. Slackjaw is looking at him expectantly. “What are you going to do with him?”

Slackjaw leans back, a proud smile on his face. “Shave his head and cut out his tongue. Put his fat bottom to work in one of those Pendleton silver mines, just like the ones his parents own.”

He’s heard of the Pendleton mines. Almost completely staffed by Pandyssian slaves, who were mostly worked to death by the time their replacements came in with the next supply of ‘workers’. Pendleton ships came into the harbor crowded with captives and left laden with silver ore.

It would be a cruel fate. It wasn’t that Luca didn’t deserve it-he did, of that Daud was sure.

There was the matter of his dossiers. Daud needed to leave with those. And Joshua Copper, who was in danger as long as he was close to their target. But Daud could tell Slackjaw about those. He could find the kid and the intel, bring them back for Daud.

That wasn’t what bothered him about this, though. The real truth was that Daud just wanted to kill Luca himself.

“So. You in, Daud?”

Slackjaw holds up his hand. Daud examines his face, searching it for any sign of dishonesty. There’s a scar on his jaw, long enough to disappear onto the underside of his chin. New enough that it’s still sharp and pink.

“How do you know I didn’t kill Billie?”

Slackjaw shifts on his feet, but maintains eye contact. “Call it a hunch,” he says.

_‘Slackjaw. He wasn’t raised in a world where it paid to be kind,’_ Billie notes, dryly. _‘But he’s more honest that most Dunwall politicians.’_

Which wasn’t saying much. But that was probably Billie’s own, weird way of telling him to trust Slackjaw.

Daud leans back on his heels and squares his shoulders. “I don’t think so,” he says, keeping his eyes locked on Slackjaw’s. “But there is something else I have in mind.”

Slackjaw leans against his desk and folds his arms. “Ya come in ‘ere and reject the favor I was gonna do ya all nicely, then you got the nerve to ask fo’ a diff’rent one?”

“You’re not doing this for me.”

At that, Slackjaw gives a chuckle. “Right. For our dear Lady Billie, then. Let’s hear it.”

Daud starts talking before he loses his nerve. “There will be a boy with Abele. At the Cat. He’s young, not loyal to the Regency, and has no business being there. I’m getting him out tonight.”

“You want me to be takin’ in street whores?” Slackjaw shakes his head as he snuffs out the end of his cigar in an ashtray, smiling all the way. “Shoulda just asked. I do that fo’ free.”

“I don’t want you to turn him into one of your gangsters,” Daud says, exasperated. “I just want someone watching his back until I can send for him. Maybe tend to his wounds if Abele really has him worked over.”

“Aye, Slackjaw can do that.” Slackjaw nods, then pushes himself away from his desk. “I’ll have my men keep an eye out. What’s the lad’s name?”

“Joshua Copper. Wears spectacles. Might have red hair.” Daud holds out his hand. “Keep him safe until this mess is over. Then I guess we’re even.”

Slackjaw laughs as he takes Daud’s hand, but his eyes are far away. “Slackjaw always pays his debts, that he do. But we never be even. I owe that fiery Empress more than me life’s worth.”

 

* * *

 

There’s not much point in sneaking out, as everyone knows he’s here by now. But Daud can’t stand the stares and ends up Blinking up to the piping again when he gets out into the yard.

He’s back to his original problem, he thinks as he exits the distillery, finding a way past the second wall of light. His best bet was to try going around, but that came with the risk of running into guards in a tighter space. If he could keep above them, though, they might not even notice he’s there.

Daud gently squeezes the Talisman, wondering if Billie has any insight.

_‘Have I been here before? Do I know these streets?’_ Billie seems to sigh. _‘The hearts of those who walk them are as cold as the winter chill. And the air is nearly as cold as I am.’_

“My jacket is keeping me plenty warm, but thank you for your concern.” Daud sighs. Billie never seems to have much in the way of practical advice-though he supposes telling him to bundle up in a round-about way might qualify. He can’t bring himself to be too annoyed, though. He doubts she can help it.

And he needs to hear her voice. Remind himself that she is still with him, in some capacity. It would serve to keep him going, until he had Thomas back.

He’s about to put the Talisman away when he sees the glow out of the corner of his eye. More bones. He’s on the move before he even registers it.

The apartment at the end of the street is filthy. The floor is covered in garbage and rat droppings, the walls filled with graffiti. A different kind of garbage, then. The bones are through the side door, out the back of the kitchen.

Daud comes out to stone steps and grass, actual grass. It’s warmer out here. He might think it’s just the absence of wind, but no, it is warmer than the Month of High Cold has any right to be.

The bones are on another table, another altar adorned with purple. Daud strides forward and swipes the runes from the surface.

He figures the Outsider might choose to show His ugly mug here, but he's not prepared for the shrine to pulse, for the grains of wood to split apart and the barbed wire around the top to burst, sending thousands of spikes into the air.

The altar explodes. And the world cracks.

He can still see the stone walls, the grass beneath his feet, but they’re...wrong. Warped, broken apart. And beyond that, he can see the Void.

The Outsider appears, because of course He does. Sitting on His altar, leaning forward, looking smug.

“I’d be careful around her, Daud,” He says. “Granny Rags had a different name before. You wouldn’t recognize it. But your sweet Empress’s grandfather begged for her hand once. Young aristocrats dueled for the chance to win her favor.” He leans in closer, as if telling Daud a secret. “But she found them all lacking. Then she put herself on a new path.”

He disappears then. Daud’s gaze shifts to the side.

“You were sent here to kill one man and save two others.” He’s walking among the dry, dead wildflowers now. Or He would, if His feet could touch the ground. “I wonder, what will that tally look like at the end of the night? Does the sparing of two people outweigh the murder of another? What happens when you add more to the balance?”

The Outsider dissolves again, this time reappearing on the stone steps. “The answer you gave Slackjaw was intriguing. You had the opportunity to spare a life, the life of a man who conspired to take your daughter's and ruin your own. But what kind of life would he have left? Would it really be merciful to throw him to the Bottle Street gang, condemn him to a life of pain and back-breaking labor, giving him all the time in the world to ruminate on his crimes? Perhaps there’s more than two sides to the scale.” He cocks His head, and Daud still feels as if the Outsider can see straight through him. “Either way, you turned him down. What’s running through your mind, Daud? Revenge, or efficacy? What will win out at the end of this night?”

He leans back, a satisfied smirk on His face. “I can’t wait to see.”

And then He’s gone. Daud blinks twice, then rubs his face. “Bastard.”

The yard is still weirdly warm, and though his nose and chapped lips protest it, it makes him too uneasy to consider staying to warm up.

The kitchen is still trashed, though now Daud can pay attention to the scribblings on the walls. Strange symbols, circles with pictures of impossible animals drawn in red chalk. This must have been the apartment Granny Rags was talking about.

Daud should ask where she sleeps at the mill, because if she keeps her quarters as she kept this place, it was no wonder they had a rat infestation.

There’s nothing of value in the kitchen or the upstairs bedroom, but Daud strikes gold in the parlor. Literally. A cigarette case and a jewelry box, nestled side-by-side on the table. A medal still in its case on a shelf nearby. All neatly inscribed with _Moray_.

Moray. If he’s heard that name before, he doesn’t remember it. He’ll have to ask somebody about it later. Probably Lizzy.

He tucks it all into his pockets, intending on giving it to Jerome to sell later. A quick check with Void Gaze makes him feel comfortable enough walking out the front door.

As he makes his way past the threshold, eyes already scanning the buildings, looking for a place to Blink onto, he spots it. It draws him in from the corner of his eye, and Daud turns his head.

Graffiti, stroked across the wall in Dunwall’s peasantry form of declaration. Letters bigger than his head. Written in blood red across the stonework.

**LONG LIVE THE EMPRESS!**

Daud approaches it slowly. The paint has run in places, but it’s dry to the touch. Hasn’t started flaking yet. It’s been here for a while, but not _that_ long of a while. In the past month. Long after her death.

He puts his hand out, placing it over the E. He remembers Billie’s coronation, the banners with those same words written across them. The crowds that chanted it as the crown was placed on her head. Long live, Billie. Long live.

The saying had no meaning anymore. There would be no more Empresses.

Daud turns and continues on his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, the first mission of the original game is also awkwardly long, and I combined the first two missions. And there's a lot of hinting of shit that's going on that probably won't be so prominent in other missions. So that's why the original chapter is sitting at almost 20k words right now, and why I decided it would be in everyone's best interest (my sanity) to split it in half.
> 
> I have a lot less outlined for most of the future missions than I did for this one, so hopefully those won't run as long.
> 
> Random note: I don't know what the Empire's status is on slavery is? Pandyssian slaves are mentioned, but all the mine workers in Karnaca are paid workers, (paid poorly, but paid and technically free to go) and we don't see house-slaves. Workers are imprisoned at Rothwild Slaughterhouse for striking, but Dunwall is under martial law at that point. So it being half-outlawed is my own theory.
> 
> The second part is written, and somewhat polished. I'll post it in a few days. We actually kill some people and accomplish things, yay.


	6. House of Pleasure Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud lives up to his reputation for saving orphans, and we learn some things about architecture.

Daud purses his lips as he watches a guard hold up a single rat by its tail.

He’d been able to weave through the back alleys of Bottle Street territory to come out on the other side of the wall of light-the rat, however, was not so lucky. It dangled in the air, screaming and frantically running it’s paws, as the guards chuckled and prepared to fry it whole.

Billie always had a soft spot for rats. She liked animals in general, but she loved the little furry ankle-nippers. Daud was constantly admonishing her for bringing them inside when she was younger, and the maids at Dunwall Tower certainly weren’t pleased when she started doing it there. Once her natural philosophy tutor had her do some sort of biology research project and, to no one’s surprise, she chose to do it on rats. Daud had listened to rat facts at the breakfast table for months.

It was a cruel sort of irony, he supposes, that the plague choking the life out of Dunwall was carried by the Empress’s favorite animal.

Still, though, it wasn’t the rats’ fault. They didn’t know better. When the guard goes to flick the rat into the wall of light, Daud reaches his hand out and Pulls it right out of the air.

The guards startle back and start looking around, confused. Daud places the ruffled but unharmed rat on the ground.

“Empress has ordered a stay of execution for you,” he whispers, patting the rat on the behind. “Go on. Git. Don’t make me regret it.”

The rat scurries off, and Daud has to take a moment to roll his eyes at himself before he gets back up, Blinks to the roofs and crosses over to Holger Square.

There’s either a dead or unconscious man heaped on the steps in front of the stocks. Daud might have gone to check on him, if he weren’t an Overseer.

He hated coming to Holger Square with Billie for a number of reasons. The first several were just that he hated Overseers, but the last one was that Holger Square was a fucking assassin’s playground.

There was a ledge that ran all around the building proper, plenty wide and obscured by shadows in places, depending on the time of day and how obnoxiously large their banners were that month.  A sniper’s paradise. Little nooks and crannies, checkpoints around the area where agents or explosives could be placed. One would think that being surrounded by armed men with an interest in protecting the Empress would dissuade anyone looking to cause trouble, but they’d be surprised.

The main hall inside was just as open, he knew, but there was at least less places for someone to hide and get a shot off on important public officials. Upstairs, however, was a mess of blind corners, high shelves, and prayer partitions. Plenty of hiding spaces, clustered close enough together that someone could step out and have assaulted the Empress within a few short seconds. Daud never let himself fall more than a step and a half behind her while they were being ushered through the halls.

The trouble with Overseers was that they wore _masks_. Anyone who could get their hands on a mask and a uniform had free roam of the place, and nobody would question who they were and why they were armed. Not until they had their sword through their mark’s chest. It had never actually happened, thankfully, but the idea was always in Daud’s mind.

That’s what he should have done, donned an Overseer mask. Then he could have just walked in, pretended he was mute to avoid giving his voice away. If they had had more time, he’s sure Jerome could have dug something up.

Daud Blinks onto the awning. He stands there for a moment to look over the street, ensuring no one had seen him, then turns the corner into the square proper.

On important occasions, the Overseers might drag out  a small, makeshift stage to host whatever had gathered a crowd big enough to require the space. A few times it’s been a speech from the Empress, which was a security headache for Daud. It’s also been host to executions. And many other events in between. Other than those occasions, the square has always been clear.

Tonight, the square is filled with all manners of crates and boxes, stacked haphazardly wherever there’s room. Daud squints to read the names printed on the sides. Shipments of whale oil, explosives and firearms. Weapons.

The Overseers _had_ a goddamn armory. Far larger than any religious body had any right to. If they were leaving supplies out in the square, both putting it in danger of being rained on and ruining the simple and clean aesthetic the architecture is supposed to represent, then the armory is full. Or they just received this shipment, though there’s no one attempting to bring any of it in. And why would they ever need firepower on this scale?

The Overseers were going to war. That much was obvious, but the question of with who remained. The plague was the most dire threat Dunwall was facing at the time. They couldn’t be fighting the rats, unless the Overseers were even stupider than they’d proven themselves to be in the past. Were they breaking the blockade, waging war against the other Isles in response to them cutting contact with Dunwall? Were they doing it on Delilah’s orders?

Whatever the case, it hopefully wouldn’t come to fruition. Daud would get Thomas on the throne and they’d put a stop to anything the Abbey was planning. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. Starting a war with the other Isles would be a pointless waste of life and money, and would strain the already thin relationship Gristol had with the rest of the Empire. And Delilah’s ideas were always horrible. Nothing good could come from it.

In any case, the excess of crap would make sneaking around a bit easier. At least.

Daud slips into an open window and Blinks to the top of a lamp. The entire building would go into lockdown if he was spotted, doors barred and thick metal sheets coming down to block off the windows, and then he’d have to exit out the chimney or something. Best to keep above their heads.

He hears chatter from farther down, but the hallway seems relatively clear. He had to find where Zhukov was being held. Billie would probably know, though whether she would tell him was another matter. Daud pulls out the Talisman just in case.

_‘The Overseers always get their confessions, whether or not they are truly guilty. They are brought bruised and bloody, in chains and already broken before they even meet the interrogators. They will never leave.’_

“Yes, Billie, but where?” Daud groans, letting the Talisman evaporate in his hand. She did, however, show him a bone. It was something.

The lamps are perfectly spaced for him to Blink to each of them, but he’s careful to stick to the tops of bookcases and crates when he can. The chains the lights hang from are strong enough to hold his weight, for the most part, but he didn’t want to risk finding a weak link. Not to mention the lamps would always sway slightly when he Blinked away, which might attract attention.

Daud slips into the room where the bone is located through the transom window above the door, used for circulating cool air in the summer months-why it’s open now, in the Month of High Cold, is beyond him. It’s slightly warmer inside the building proper, but Daud is still glad he has on his coat and thick gloves.

Once he’s inside, he recognizes the room. The hallways were odd and foreign from above, not to mention the sheer amount of crap that litters the floor. But he remembers this place. It’s the official meeting room, with a table long enough to seat ten and a fireplace large enough to warm it all.

It’s above the fireplace that he spots it. Daud Blinks forward and snatches the rune off the wall. There’s a plaque spouting some bullshit about temptation, but Daud barely skims it before Blinking back up to the ledge. He doesn’t know how he stood behind Billie’s chair all those times, stone-faced and focused on his work when _that_ was right here.

Two of the doors open out to the hallway, but Daud can’t remember what’s behind the third one. He doubts Zhukov is back there, as he can hear several voices and they seem in rather good spirits.

There’s a tray with two glasses of wine, though the wine is now dripping onto the floor, as the glasses had been smashed. Like two people tried to toast especially hard and ended up breaking their cups. Billie had done that once, at her eighteenth birthday party. The first one Daud had let her drink at, and she had gotten drunk faster than he expected. It turned out that the fine crystal tumblers at Dunwall Tower were more delicate than the mugs at the bars she visited when she donned a hat and snuck out. She tried to toast Lord Perth and ended up in the Royal Physician’s office, getting shards of glass picked out of her hand.

“You remember that, Bils?” Daud takes out the Talisman and gives it a squeeze. “I remember how much you hated those fancy parties. I’d probably be driven to drink too.”

Billie is quiet, but only for a moment, and when she does speak Daud gets the impression that she was paying attention to something else.

 _‘Such corruption! Selfishness, hypocrisy.’_ She spits, as angry as Daud had ever seen her. _‘Make me look upon it no more.’_

Her voice is thick with disgust. Daud respects her wishes, and lets the Talisman fade.

He wouldn’t find Zhukov here. He runs through his options as slides back through the window, looking down the long hallway from above. He remembers there’s a library up here, and kennels downstairs. Living quarters behind the building proper. Would they keep him in the kennels? Or did they have holding cells out back?

No, there was an interrogation room on this floor, wasn’t there? They had set up a would-be assassin in there once, after one particularly pathetic attempt at shooting the Empress on Abbey grounds. Billie had wanted to face the man and the High Overseer tried to scare her away, citing how gruesome the interrogation could be. The blood hadn’t even fazed her. Daud had been proud.

He sneaks down the hallway, passing the archives and stopping in front of the sign that marked the room as the interrogation room. Daud blinks, activating Void Gaze. Four people inside, three crowded around the interrogation chair. One strapped to it. Zhukov, the bastard.

Daud Blinks to the top of the door, sliding through the upper window the same way he did in the meeting room. Zhukov looks exactly the way Edgar Wakefield had described, like a bug. Wrapped head to toe in thick Tyvian furs, aside from the oversized red goggles on his face.

“I say we unwrap just the hands.” One of the Overseers scoffs. “Get started on his fingernails and see if that makes him talk.”

“I’m not going to be the one touching him! You saw Brother Franklin after he tried peeling back the hood. He’s _still_ in the infirmary, and none of his babbling makes any sense!”

_‘He sings a song under his breath to stave off the fear. A harsh song, condemning the Outsider and warding off magic. But beautiful, in a way. I wish you could hear it.’_

The Overseer throws his hands up. “Well, isolation hasn’t worked so far! What do you propose we do?”

The third Overseer holds up a large metal poker. “I’ve been hitting him with this. Hasn’t really reacted, though.”

_‘He’s not a believer. He has no care whether they’re guilty or innocent. He tortures them anyway.’_

The Overseer in charge scoffs and turns away, walking away to face the metal bars on the other side of the room. Daud waits for the Overseer with the big stick to turn his head ever so slightly, then steps into the air.

He extends his wrist as he falls, his bolt piercing the back of the Overseer’s skull. Falls on the other one, and inserts his sword between his shoulder blades, pulling down once before taking it out to ensure he’d gotten something vital. The last Overseer has turned around by this point, alerted by the blood splatter from the first one, but Daud is already up and advancing, and-

_‘He set the hounds on them. His sister and nephew. His stomach burned with jealousy.’_

-he thrusts his palm out and hits the Overseer in the mask, enough to stun him for just a second. Long enough for Daud to put his blade through his heart.

Zhukov is silent throughout it all. Daud turns around, wondering if he died under there and the Overseers were too thick to notice it. But no, his head still moves, his eyes following Daud around the room. Daud steps forward and pushes the button to release his bonds.

To his surprise, Zhukov doesn’t move right away. He simply continues staring at Daud, or at least he assumes so. He can’t see anything in those goggles besides his own reflection. Finally, though, Zhukov leans forward.

“Thank you,” he breathes, getting to his feet. “Their line of questioning was rather ineffective, but it’s been quite a bother being stuck here.”

Zhukov stands to his full height and Daud notes, with some displeasure, that he’s tall. Obscenely tall. Definitely over six feet, may even be closer to seven. Daud maybe comes up to his armpits, and that’s in his lifts.

So that explains how he got caught. No way a guy of his size could be stealthy. But how it the world did these Overseers manage to subdue him?

“It’s a pleasure,” Daud says gruffly. He’d hold out his hand to shake, but he’s not entirely sure he wants to touch Zhukov either.

Zhukov doesn’t seem to mind, already wandering away to examine the grains on the door. “You’re Daud, I take it. I apologize for not being present for your arrival. I had planned to be back by the time Miss Elizabeth made her way back with you, but the universe had different plans.”

That was one way of looking at it. Daud stands back and folds his arms. “You think you can make it back to Lizzy without getting caught again? I still have work to do.”

“Oh?” Zhukov turns back, but doesn’t appear to even look at Daud. “I assume you’re referring to Luca Abele’s demise? Yes, it would be prudent to get that out of the way, as long as we’re here.” He turns back to the apparently very fascinating door. “There is some other business that required my attention here, at the Abbey. I came for an artifact they have in lockdown, but during my stakeout I overheard some very distressing information, regarding the likes of Miss Fleet and Mister Wakefield, concerning a conspiracy.”

“They know you’re the ones who broke me out?” Daud’s stomach drops. That alone wouldn’t ruin them, but if they could trace their association to other members of the group, to their hiding place… The mill was supposedly under Lizzy’s name, having legally inherited it, so they could possibly glean their location from that, if Lizzy herself was implicated.

But Zhukov shakes his head. “Oh no. Well, they might think that now. You were still in prison at the time.” He might be chuckling to himself, but the sound is so odd and muted that Daud can’t be sure. “No, they think they’re the ones who have young Thomas. Possibly that they contracted you to kill the Empress. Who knows what theories these men come up with?”

Well, that would be partially true, fairly soon at least. They would be holding Thomas, though Thomas would be far from a captive.

But this showed that the Abbey wasn’t involved in Delilah’s ‘ring of treachery’, as Slackjaw put it. They weren’t in on the plan to off the Empress, and didn’t know that it was Delilah who had orchestrated the takeover. They thought Thomas was really missing, not just sequestered away somewhere until Delilah decided to reveal him.

“So what exactly were you trying to do when you were captured?” Daud scratches his chin. “Take out the High Overseer?”

“That would be unnecessary. All information pertaining to our allies will be kept in the archives, so taking those for ourselves and doing away with the archivist should throw them off our trail.” He pauses then, still staring at the damn wood. “Plus they took my knife.”

Daud blinks. “Your...knife.”

“Yes.”

“We have...you know, we have spare swords back at base.” Daud kicks the limp arm of an Overseer by his feet. “You can take one of these ones too.”

“I would like my knife back. I’m quite partial to it.”

Right. Well, one would think he would be more partial to his fingernails, but Daud supposes he also had some screwed up priorities somewhere, so he probably wasn’t one to judge.

“Okay.” Daud breathes out, not caring if Zhukov sees him rolling his eyes. “Archives are right across the hall. Let’s go get your knife back.”

Zhukov opens the door, much to Daud’s displeasure. It was _really_ no wonder he got himself captured. A clock chimes somewhere and Daud follows him through the door, because it would just be weird to climb over it now, and carefully closes it behind him. Someone would find the bodies, eventually. He would need to be gone by then.

Void Gaze only showed one person inside, but the room was too big for it to fully cover. There could be more. Daud blinks it away and turns to Zhukov. “I’ll go in first, take care of anyone inside. Give me two minutes, then follow me.”

Zhukov is staring at him intensely. Daud suddenly wonders what his eyes actually look like when he activates his Gaze.

But then Zhukov nods, shuffles his enormous body to look across the hallway, towards the window. “I’ll be waiting.”

Daud wiggles through the transom window again, perching himself on the ledge. Part of the library is up a level, putting the floor even with Daud’s position, so he’d have to be careful. There are indeed two people on the lower floor, one bent over a table and the other standing guard. He can hear another voice from the upper half, and Void Gaze confirms it’s only one person. Probably the archivist. Talking to himself, apparently. Weirdos.

 _‘Do not weep or make a sound, for that will bring the ‘seer’s hound.’_ Billie whispers, sounding for all the world like the little girl who used to sing that same rhyme when she was bored, who taught it to Thomas while Daud was too busy cooking dinner to shush her. They didn’t need to be afraid of Overseers. Daud would protect them. He told them.

He Blinks, landing on the guard and pushing him to the ground, blade on his throat. Blinks behind the other, inserts his sword at the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

The archivist is none the wiser. Daud Blinks up to the partition and looks down on the menagerie of notes and maps laid out over the table, with the archivist bent over studying it all. Daud jumps. Lands squarely in the middle of the table, where the archivist’s eyes just were. Daud thinks it’s a shame the Overseer’s wear masks.

The archivist startles back, silent for the moment. Daud reaches out,grabs the man’s shoulder, and brings him in on his blade.

He’s rifling through the files when Zhukov lets himself in. The massive, bug-eyed monstrosity strolls up the steps like he was looking for the bathroom at a restaurant. Daud doesn’t bother looking up. “This what we’re looking for?”

Zhukov stands off to the side, his gaze wandering the wall of book spines. “It should be all there. They’d assemble all their information in one place.”

“Makes our lives easier,” Daud grumbles, gathering pages together. An assembly of eye-witness reports and Overseer musings, one map of Coldridge with certain areas marked off. So his hunch about the Overseers connecting the dots to his escape was right. “Are you going to look for your knife, or are you going to let me do all the work?” he calls over his shoulder.

Zhukov’s head snaps back in his direction, as if he had forgotten Daud’s existence. “It’s not here.”

Daud pauses. “You haven’t even looked.”

“Yes, but I know. My knife is gone.” He shakes his head. “It served its purpose, I suppose. Just as well. It’ll come back to me if I need it.”

He continues moseying on as if they had just been discussing when to have tea. Daud blinks, then rubs his eyes. They warned him Zhukov was nuts, though Daud feels like that’s not really an appropriate word. But then, were there really words to describe this bullshit?

Daud goes back to his work, pawing through drawers for extra intel and whatever else he can find. He pulls out a thick leather binder and begins shoving papers in. When he’s gotten everything on the table, he starts grabbing fistfulls of paper and throwing them into the metal trash can.

Zhukov wanders up behind him to peer over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Fucking with them,” Daud grunts. He supposes somebody else might break in, kill a half-dozen Overseers and steal a bunch of intel solely regarding his escape and Thomas’s whereabouts, but it would be a small list of suspects. At least now it wouldn’t be quite so obvious. “You got a lighter? What am I saying,” he rolls his eyes, opening the top drawer. “Of course you don’t.”

There, matches. He thought he saw some. Daud strikes it, curses a bit when he can’t get his fingers to close tight enough and the match slips from his hands. His hands are shaking too bad for him to strike it on the second. He finally gets it lit on the third fucking try, and he drops it into the wastebasket and watches all those official Overseer documents go up in smoke.

“You do good work,” Zhukov says, stepping up behind him. Daud rolls his eyes and turns around, shoving the parcel into his arms.

“Here. If I get you out of the square, do you think you can make it back to Lizzy’s boat without getting caught again?”

If Zhukov picks up on Daud’s shortness, he doesn’t show it. He merely tucks the binder under his arm and stands up straighter and, somehow, even taller. “Oh, you and Miss Elizabeth don’t have to worry about me. I’ll find my own way back.”

Daud raises an eyebrow. “Really. Because you seemed to run into trouble the first time.”

“You doubt my abilities.” Zhukov turns, his shiny red goggles staring right through him. “I have my ways.”

“I’m not coming back here if your ass gets caught again.”

“You won’t have to. I’ll see you at home, Daud.”

Zhukov turns dramatically, and Daud is left blinking as he flounces off. He recovers his bearings after a split second, and brings up Billie to get her read on the guy.

Only Billie is silent. Daud aims the Talisman at Zhukov and squeezes, but there’s nothing.

He almost wonders if she’s feeling alright, but then feels stupid. Thinking a ghost might be sick. Was it the Talisman, her connection to the world fading? He holds it up to the bookshelf and squeezes again.

_‘Can you hear them too? The leviathans, crying out for one another. For us. Burned alive to light the world.’_

No, Billie was fine. Well, as fine as she could be now.

Daud looks to Zhukov again, but he’s disappeared. He leans over to check the stairs, the lower level, nothing. Zhukov is gone.

Daud sneaks out through the library through the same window, dropping down and landing on the floor like a particularly limber cat. He leans out to check the hallway before crossing it, intending on making his exit through the window right across from him, but then he notices the door to the interrogation room swaying ever so slightly.

Hadn’t he closed it? He thought he did. He swore he did. Outsider’s eyes, he couldn’t be forgetting little details like this out on jobs. He just thanked the Void that no one noticed the open door and decided to investigate.

Daud creeps back and grabs the door handle, peeking in to ensure there was no one actually inside at the moment, but the shadows are off. The hairs on the back of Daud’s neck stand up, and he throws the door open.

There’s the three men Daud killed earlier, still lying where they died, but the empty interrogation chair that Zhukov had vacated was now occupied again. An Overseer with no mask, dressed in red. High Overseer Campbell.

Sporting an H as red as his coat emblazoned across his face.

Daud blinks, then blinks again. wondering if the scene will change if he does that enough times. If it will somehow reset the world so these things made sense.

How? He had been right here not ten minutes ago. He had been right across the hallway. He hadn’t noticed a scuffle, nothing. Who would benefit from giving Campbell the Heretic’s Brand?

They had been right here. Twenty feet away, and he hadn’t noticed.

Daud firmly shuts the door, Blinking over to the open window and hoisting himself over the sill without another moment of hesitation.

He goes to sneak along the ledge again when he stumbles, tripping over something. A something that was suspiciously human-shaped, and groaned when Daud’s foot met his ribcage.

There’s several bodies pulled out onto the ledge. A few with Overseer masks, at least two wearing City Watch blue. All still breathing. All unconscious.

Daud jumps, Blinks away before he has a chance to run into whoever was responsible for all this. On a normal day, he would have felt it necessary to investigate. Put a stop to whoever was knocking out Overseers and branding heretics quieter than a mouse. But it’s been months since his last normal day, and he had bigger things to worry about. He was simply not dealing with this right now.

 

* * *

 

Daud perches on the rooftop in front of the Captain’s Chair hotel, trying to figure out the best way to get in. The windows were all barred, thanks to the high crime in the area, so breaking in there would be a no-go. Would also make exiting the damn place all the more difficult. He hated his job.

There’s a watchtower set up on the corner, but it’s powered down and even starting to show signs of disrepair already. It had to have been set up in the past few months-Billie wouldn’t have used them against her own citizens. She hadn’t outright banned the invention, but had set up stringent limitations on where they could be deployed, and outside a brewhouse in the middle of the Distillery District certainly wouldn’t have met her requirements.

It was just as well. Nobody seemed to have bothered maintaining it, or even refilling the whale oil tank powering it. It wasn’t a threat to him now, but he’d have to keep an eye out for them in the future. If Delilah was happy to use things like watchtowers and walls of light against the people of Dunwall, Outsider only knew what she’d throw into the game once she knew he was back in it.

Daud Blinks to the top of the Chair’s entryway, flattening himself down behind the sign to avoid getting spotted by passing guards. There was only a few, but he had seen an alarm on the next street over. He’d rather avoid that headache.

He peers down and activates Void Gaze, taking note of the first floor of the hotel. Two women sitting at a table, playing cards or something in the room off to the right. One guard in the room on the left, looking like he’s napping in his chair. People should be mostly in bed-it was nearing eleven at night. Daud was usually in bed by now, if he was going to sleep. Billie would often still be up, but she was always weird like that.

So the windows were a bust. The front door was certainly locked, and Wakefield had mentioned something about the other entrances being blocked off for ‘security’. If Daud didn’t need those papers, and didn’t care what happened to Rose’s brother, he’d wait for Luca to turn in for the night and set the damn place on fire. The hotel had an exit to the roof, but Daud already checked the rooftops. They were too high on this block. He couldn’t get over. Couldn’t break through the windows. Fuck, should he go under? Scurrying through the sewers like a rat?

Although...the front door wasn’t barred. There wasn’t even a latch. He’d wager the only part that actually locked was the knob itself.

Daud waits for the guard currently picking his nose to turn onto the next street. He quickly vaults over the sign, lands in front of the door and, without giving himself a chance to really think about it, lifts his leg up and kicks the door as hard as possible.

The door busts open. There’s a shriek from the right-side room, and Daud Blinks forward into the stairwell. He crouches, hides under the steps, and watches. The no-longer-napping guard sprints across the hallway.

“What’s wrong? I heard screaming.”

Daud hunches down even lower. Stupid, stupid. If they decide to look, they’ll find him.

“There was a bang...I thought it was a gunshot…”

He has four sleep darts left, and he wanted to save one for Joshua, in case he was in a lot of pain and Daud needed to carry him out. That left him three to get through both the hotel and the brothel. He’d only used one so far tonight, but he cared less about the prospect of killing Overseers than whores. He’d much rather dart the girls than kill them.

“It was the front door, see?”

They’re all crowding around the entryway, one maid hiding behind the guard and peering over his shoulder. Daud had enough darts to knock them all out, but he’d have to be extremely careful not to get spotted in the Cat.

“Might have been the wind?” The other maid turns to her coworkers. “Nobody came through here. Jay and I were sitting right at the table, and we would of seen someone.”

Daud holds his breath. He flips his wristbow over to his sleep darts without tearing his eyes from the three.

There’s a pause, then the guard curses. “Shitty goddamn door…” He walks forward and pulls the door closed. “I’ll check with the Captain tomorrow, see about getting a proper bolt put on.”

Daud lets out his breath as the guard bids the maids good night and returns to the front room. Probably back to his nap. The maids head back into the kitchen, and Daud almost laughs. It wasn’t even windy out.

He’s light on his toes all the way up the stairs, as he can already tell the building is old and prone to creaking. The people working here might assume it’s just their coworkers moving around, but it would be better if he left nothing to be tracked. Void Gaze easily shows him what lies behind each locked door, two or three of them to a floor as the building is incredibly narrow. Bunks occupied by guards and servants, rooms blocked off with furniture covered in sheets. The top floor, however, has only one room, and Daud can see the unmade bed in the middle of the floor, the heaps of laundry and shards of broken pottery where one vase had apparently met its’ violent end.

It had to be Luca’s quarters; no one else would be that messy. It was, however, completely empty. Luca was still out.

It would have been nice to have caught Luca here, and not had to visit the Cat. Would have been faster, easier. But when have things ever been easy for Daud?

The door was locked. He couldn’t kick the door down and blame it on the wind again. He could always shoot the lock off, but he’d just run into the same problem. He’d have to come back. He skips up the stairs and lets himself out onto the rooftop. Of course they didn’t bother locking the rooftop access. No one expects someone to come from above.

The Golden Cat is a lot busier than Daud would have expected. Or at least that’s what he thinks, until he examines the busy street a little more closely. The courtesans are all standing around, huddled up together to conserve heat. And all the men wandering the streets are guards. Patrolling. They’re on duty.

Something happened. Daud didn’t know what, but it couldn’t mean good things for him. Somebody might have been tipped off that there would be an attempt on Abele’s life tonight. Or, hell, Slackjaw might have gone ahead and kidnapped him already, without Daud’s consent. Maybe it was unrelated, but a larger guard presence would still make his job harder.

_‘They come from all over. Bastard daughters from the cities, mouths that can’t be fed from the countryside. They thought they’d all be working in a factory.’_

Well, that was all very sad, but it wasn’t really useful to him.

Daud Blinks to a balcony on a nearby building, leaning out to listen in on the conversation. But it’s nothing telling. Even the courtesans don’t seem to know what’s going on. A few of them pester a guard for details, who just waves them off and tells them to sit tight while the investigation is underway. One girl complains she’s cold. They’re all in their underwear, and the guards all wear thermal underclothing as part of the winter uniform. If he was there on Royal Protector business, he’d make them all give up their coats. Or at least move the poor girls inside where it was warmer.

He Blinks over to an awning, then curses when he notices guards on a balcony at his level. He ducks down in the fake ivy and wills himself to blend in.  He waits for the guards to turn away before peeking his head back out to survey the area. There’s windows behind the guards with their shutters open. Windows all over the place, really. He’d have to be careful not to be spotted, but it gave him an easy way in.

Daud Pulls a nearby wine bottle and smashes it against the side of the balcony. The guards run over to investigate, and Daud uses the opportunity to cross the yard and Blink himself onto the window ledge.

Inside, he’s level with a decorative ledge that runs around the perimeter of the room. There’s two guards conversing with an older woman, thick makeup and ironed curls. The Madame. Daud creeps closer.

“And you haven’t gotten anything out of Violetta, is that right?”

“No ma’am. We’ve had her in the Silver Room for three hours, but she still claims she was unconscious during Lord Custis’s disappearance.”

“Mm.” The Madame fingers the pearls around her throat. “I’d appreciate if you avoided killing her. These girls are hard to replace, and with Loulia unable to work while she recovers, I’m already down one earner.”

 _‘She throws the dead girls in the river,’_ Billie whispers.

One of the guards cracks his neck. “We’ll need to question her as well, once she’s back.”

“You didn’t think she had something to do with it, do you?” The Madame puts her hand on her chest. “I told you, there was an existing issue with the Steam Room, I would have gotten it fixed already, but with the plague-”

“It’s not just that, ma’am.” The other guards says. “Don’t you find it curious that Lord Morgan was the only one found dead? The door was locked, and both the girl and Officer Marks were inside.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” the Madame scoffs. She turns away, opening a door off to the right. The guards move to follow her.

Daud steps into the air and lands directly beside one of the guards. He thrusts his sword through the back of his neck and lets him fall to the ground. The other guard turns around at the sound of his companion hitting the floor, and Daud Blinks forward. Before the guard can draw his blade, Daud puts his own through the guard’s temple.

The Madame has noticed, and she sprints forward into the stairwell. “Please don’t kill me!” she shrieks, jiggling the door across from the stairwell entrance. Daud enters the room, and the Madame falls to her knees, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m just a business woman! Can you really blame me-”

Daud pulls her up by her stupid, fake red curls and draws his sword over her throat.

She had a key to the door, so she could have easily opened it and escaped to her office. So he’s not sure why she just knelt there. He drags the bodies inside and closes the door behind him, then sweeps the room.

There’s a drawer full of coin that he helps himself to, and some fancy pieces of jewelry. He pockets those as well, figuring Jerome would find someone to sell them to. If he couldn’t or they turned out to be worthless, he could always give them to some of the girls. Maybe Galia, or Rose. Lydia and Thalia probably had much nicer things already. Lizzy wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this shit.

He skips over the journals and records, pawing through the single ledger that contained today’s business. The  records stop about three hours ago, which he would guess is when the Cat closed down for investigation. All the guests have an out time right around then. Luca Abele entered the Cat at about fifteen o’clock, but unlike all the other patrons, there’s no out time for him, or for a ‘J.C.’ that’s entered right below him. The ledger puts them down for the Ivory Room, but that’s scrawled out in red with **3S** written over it in messy handwriting.

It could never be easy, could it? Daud sighs.

Daud turns all this information over in his head as he locks up the office and Blinks back up to the ledge. A murder and kidnapping. Felt too familiar for comfort. The Pendleton twins? He doesn’t remember much about them, just that they mined silver and had a fair amount of Parliament votes to their name. Daud remembers ejecting one from a dinner after he made a comment about getting Billie drunk so he could bed her. A dress collar may have been torn in the process. He hadn’t even realized who it was at the time-Billie had told him about it afterwards while seated at her vanity, taking off her jewelry. He can still see her there, laughing about it as she removed an earring, bathed in dim candlelight.

Now the man’s dead. Or was abducted. He can’t remember which Pendleton he kicked out. He can’t remember which Pendleton is dead, actually.

Whoever it was died in the Steam Room, a fact that’s verified when he creeps through the upper window to the main lounge. The staircase leading down to it is blocked off, with guards milling about the entrance. A few courtesans are still around, mostly seated on the fancy couches. Two women slow dance with each other off to the side, slumped over and barely holding each other up.

Billie’s voice crackles to life like soft thunder. _‘Her husband chose to draw blood, but his wife found another way. One showed mercy.’_

There were no mysteries around Billie. The issue was whether she felt like sharing her findings.

There’s a decorative awning above the middle ring, but there’s also an opening to the second floor, where anyone could look down. He can Blink over there if needed, but he’d have to be careful not to be spotted by anyone above.

Across the lounge is the Ivory Room, the door splayed wide open. That’s evidently where the guards have set up, which would explain why Abele was kicked out. Now where to?

He peeks his head into both the Jade Room and the Ivy Room, shaking his head all the while. Who came up with this bullshit? Why did the room names have to sound stuffy and fancy? What was it with nobles wanting the entire world to be pretty for them?

Regardless, they’re both empty. The Ivy Room has a balcony overlooking the river though, which Daud makes a mental note of. He returns to the lounge and looks it over. The only other room on this floor was the Silver Room, where this ‘Violet’ or someone was being questioned. Luca was most likely upstairs.

He activates Void Gaze to get a feel for the upper floor, but he can’t help but glance into the Silver Room. There’s no bed, no decorations, just two guards and what looked like a very large dentist chair, with a small woman strapped in.

Daud always felt bad for the whores. He remembers living in a brothel for a short time when he was young, while his mother worked as their doctor. He knows most of them don’t enter this line of work by choice, and are in no way properly compensated for what they do. And then there’s always the nagging memory that Billie was considering coming to a place like this, looking for employment, before they found each other. Thomas might have ended up here too.

Kids on the street had about three choices for what they were going to do when they grew up. The mines, the brothels, or the gangs. The women here may not have even had that much of a choice.

There’s the voice in his head telling him he’s a bleeding heart. That he was wasting valuable time, that he was risking being caught before Luca was dead by his blade. That in the grand scheme of thing, one single courtesan wasn’t important.

But he can’t leave her here.

The floor is busy enough, and the entrance to the room obscured enough, that nobody notices him Blink down to the floor and slip inside. The guards don’t even notice the door opening and closing behind them. Good thing too, as there’s nothing to hide behind in here. They’re too busy with the woman, crying on the chair.

“And he told me to dress up like Lady Boyle, Waverly Boyle,” she gasps. “And then I felt a prick on my arm, and-”

“You’re not nearly pretty enough to pass for Waverly,” one of the guards sneers.

The other guard pulls the lever connected to the chair, and the courtesan shrieks in pain.

“Now, again.” He’s far too calm for this. Daud readies his blade and creeps closer.

“I told you! The next thing I know a guard is shaking me awake!” she cries. “Please believe me. I don’t think I can take another.”

The guard turns away to make a note, and Daud takes the opportunity to grab his friend by the shoulder and thrust his sword through his back. The guard is none the wiser, until Daud has one hand in his hair and his blade pressed up against his throat.

“Abele.” Daud intentionally lowers his voice. He doesn’t know if his voice is distinguishable enough to tell on its own, but he wasn’t taking the chance.

A pen drops from the guard’s hands. They’re in front of his waist, can’t reach for his gun or sword faster than Daud can swipe his blade. The guard’s hands are shaking. “I’ll scream, I’ll-”

“I’ll kill you.” Daud leans in closer. “Where. Is. Abele.”

“M-my supervisor is right outside, he’ll-”

Then there’s only a choking sound as Daud slits the man’s throat. He turns back to the courtesan, who’s absolutely shaking in fear. Blindfolded, luckily. She won’t even know who rescued her.

Daud reaches over the side of the chair and covers her mouth with his hand. “Don’t scream. I’m not here to hurt you.”

It doesn’t seem to calm her. If anything, she’s shaking more.

“I’ll let you talk, but you have to promise you won’t scream.”

Still trembling, she nods. Daud removes his hand. She gasps as if he’d been holding her underwater.

“Please don’t kill me,” she sobs in a whisper.

“I’m not. I’m actually going to help you.” If Daud were a better man, he’d know how to comfort her. Hold her hand. Have something reassuring to say. But he doesn’t know how to do any of that, so he just focuses on getting this over with. “I need to know where Luca Abele was moved to.”

The woman takes a deep breath. “I think...that nice boy he’s with, he was complaining about the hookah...right, the Smoking Room. For security.”

Security at a whorehouse was a goddamn joke, more for show than anything. It was only dangerous now due to the sheer number of guards investigating the murder. Abele wouldn’t be any safer from Daud no matter what little hiding spot they found for him.

“Thank you,” he breathes into her ear. He slips the cigarette case from Granny’s old place in her pocket as he draws back. “Count to one hundred and then you can get up. I’ll leave something outside the door you can cover up with. Get what you need and get out of here. Walk slow, and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

“Th-thank you,” she says in a small voice.

Daud slips out of the room as easily as he slipped in. He spies a scarf draped over a nearby partition and snatches it up, tucks it into the door handle and Blinks back to the awning before he can be spotted.

He realizes the poor girl might not know her numbers well enough to count to a hundred, but eventually she does open the door. Grabs the scarf and pulls it over her head to hide her face instead of draping it over her scantily-clad body. Smart girl.

She pulls one courtesan to the side and whispers something to her, then they both dart off. Daud watches them both through Void Gaze. Viola or whatever her name is scurrying towards the stairwell, her friend’s hand in hers. He doesn’t know where they’re going. That’s not the way the exit is. But she got away.

Daud Blinks up past the upper floor balustrade, to the metal awnings covered in ivy. There’s less people up here, mostly milling about in the Gold Room. The door to the Smoking Room is closed, and guarded by two Watch officers.

No matter. Most of the rooms had balconies, like the large one built into this side of the lounge, right in front of where Daud is hiding. He could always enter from the outside.

He rocks on the balls of his feet, watching one courtesan lean over the railing. He’s tempted to use a sleep dart on her so he can sneak by. Luca is there, right there, so close and Daud will have him dead so soon. But he waits. He’s waited six months. He won’t ruin it with his impatience now.

Another guard in a light blue coat comes over to join the hooker, rubbing his face. Daud tries not to scream.

“Rough day?” the woman asks. The guard nods.

“Don’t know what’s worse, the investigation or dealing with the Duke’s son.” He sighs. “Your boss keeps harping on about a missing girl too, but she won’t tell us who and all you ladies are accounted for.”

“I have no idea who she’s talking about. Maybe old Prudence is losing it.”

“Maybe.” The guard leans forward, resting his elbows on the railing. “At least the river is pretty tonight.”

The courtesan cosies up to his side, copying his pose. “It is, isn’t it? I like coming over here, looking at the water. It’s peaceful.”

“Yeah. The river still looks the same. It’s like the last year never happened. Like the Empress never died.”

“I miss the Empress,” the courtesan sighs. “She sent us chocolates once. No reason. Just to be nice. And now she’s gone, and half the city’s dead.”

“The rats came a year before the Empress died.” A navy-coated guard approaches. “Don’t you remember? That’s why that murderer was away from Dunwall so long. He was looking for someone to fix her mess.”

“I always assumed she sent him away because she knew he was planning something,” the other guard says, scratching his neck. “She got wind of a plot against her and was trying to replace him quietly. Then Daud found out and murdered her before she had the chance. Or at least that’s my mother’s theory.”

“You’re giving her way too much credit. That bitch grew up eating dirt and didn’t know her head from her left asscheek.”

“I heard it was a crime of passion,” the courtesan supplies. “Her and Lady Delilah were going to get engaged. Everyone knew Daud was screwing the Empress, so she had to break it off with him. And then he snapped and killed her.” She says simply, with a lilt at the end, as if it really was so cavalier.

The guard scoffs. “A bastard idiot and a dyke. Clearly a woman we want on our money.”

“Why are you doing this?” The light-coated guard steps away from the railing, raising his hands. “She’s dead. Show a little respect.”

The other guard raises his finger and points angrily. “You’re from a good family, Luther, you of all people should know the value of proper breeding. The girl’s mother was some bitch from the weeds the old Emperor never bothered courting.  No way she was even Gristolian.” The guard straightens out his jacket, peering out over the river. “Kaldwin, though, that name bears weight. The fine lady will lead us to greatness. You’ll see.”

“Well, Billie Lurk  may have been all those things you mentioned, but she was still our Empress. And last time I checked, that outranked you.” The guard sniffs. Then he turns back to the courtesan. “I’m due for a break. How does a walk sound to you?”

“That sounds lovely.” The woman accepts the coat the guard peels off and drapes over her shoulders, pulling it around herself like a blanket. She turns back around as the guard slips his arm around her shoulders. “Fuck you. Empress Billie was my hero.”

“Sounds about right. Patron saint of whores and mudlarks.” The guard sniffs. The courtesan shoots him the finger as the two walk away, and the remaining guard leans over the railing and mumbles under his breath. “Bitch.”

There’s no one else around. Daud Blinks behind the guard and grabs one side of his head, bringing his fist in on his other temple. The man slumps over, temporarily knocked out. Daud grabs his coin purse and rips it away as he pushes the unconscious body over the railing.

Daud vaults himself over the railing and crouches on a nearby ledge, out of the light. He listens for the splash from the river below, then pulls out the Talisman. “Don’t fault me for that.”

_‘A noblewoman will soon start with the coughing. Her husband will fake death in order to stay close to her. Will we kill them too?’_

She’s so blasé with her tone. Daud can’t tell whether she’s disappointed or excited about the prospect.

He’s glad they waited until dark to do this, Daud thinks, as he creeps under windows and around turrets. It was easier to see out in the daytime, but in the dark, windows worked the other way. Nobody would be able to spot him, unless they had their noses pressed up to the glass. The Smoking Room itself didn’t have any exterior windows. But Daud was always good with mental maps, visualizing the layout of a place and corresponding it to his surroundings. It served him well as Royal Protector, it served him extremely well when he was a thief, and it would serve him well now. He can tell where the Smoking Room should be. And when he activates Void Gaze, he sees a large fat man standing at a table.

Daud grips his sword and Blinks to the balcony. The door is made of glass, but there’s a changing screen right in front of him. For privacy.

Or to make it easier for an assassin to sneak through. One of the two.

Daud opens it just far enough to scootch himself through, taking great care to let it close with a quiet click. The air is practically blue with smoke, the red carpeting showing burn marks the embroidered tapestries are devoid of.

“You need to learn how to let loose, my boy.”

Daud freezes. It’s him. Luca Abele, a few feet away. Still breathing, still wagging that lying, lying tongue of his.

So close. So easy.

“I’m fine.” There’s a smaller voice, off to the side. Daud relaxes his hand. Right, Joshua Copper was here. Well, at least he knew the kid was alive.

Alive, and able to scream.

“You have no fun.” A chuckle. “Hardly drink, don’t smoke. We’re surrounded by some of the most beautiful women, and you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself at all.”

“I’m just tired. I’d like to go home soon.”

“And yesterday you were off quoting Rose-budew shit at that girl in the purple.” Luca trails off with a few incomprehensible half-sentences.

Daud peeks around the screen. Joshua sits on a lounge chair, hands in his lap and his feet planted on the floor. Bony, blond, wirey spectacles pointed at his lap. He’s noticeably devoid of bruises, Daud notes.

“Roseburrow,” Joshua whispers to his knees.

Luca is standing in front of him, grumbling and holding a hookah hose in one hand. His shirt ruffled, his hair greasy and already starting to thin. And Daud is back on the pavillion, Luca standing above him and accusing him of…

Daud wants to take the moment back. Seize Luca by his stupid lapels and shove his sword through his own damn gut. Make him feel everything that Billie felt. To make him pay for every second of pain and grief, wants to twist his neck and rip out his lying, lying tongue, tear out his heart and stomp on it and he didn’t kill her _he didn’t kill her_.

His lovely, fierce Empress. Ripped open on the patio.

_‘He counts the moments until he sees her again. She is everything to him. His sun and his sky.’_

She was everything to Daud too. But then they killed her.

The moment Luca turns around, Daud slips out from behind the screen and ducks behind Joshua’s lounge chair. His eyes dart around. The door was closed, but brothel doors often didn’t lock. Guards would still be able to burst in at any time. Daud spies a sword lying on a dresser, still in its scabbard. Luca’s, most likely. Felt safe enough, trusted Delilah’s reputation to protect him. Daud grabs it and slides it through the door handles.

Luca’s back is still turned. Joshua is still staring at his lap, shifting uncomfortably as he listens to Luca’s drunken ramblings. Daud leans over the lounger, slaps a hand over Joshua’s mouth and whispers in his ear. “Be quiet. I’m here to help.”

And when he takes his hand away, Joshua doesn’t yell for the guards. Daud doesn’t spare him a second glance. He passes him by, grabbing a wine bottle from a side table and walks up to Luca’s side. He’s there, _right there_ , close enough that Daud can see the stream of smoke he expels from his mouth. Luca doesn’t notice him, standing feet away. Daud grits his teeth and bangs his sword on the ground.

Luca jumps. He pivots around to face the source of the disturbance, hand already going for his holster. Daud throws the wine bottle and catches him neatly in the right shoulder, red wine staining his shirt and his hand fumbling to keep his hold on his gun.

“You dare attack me-” Abele shouts, his fat face reddening further. Daud brings his sword down on his right arm, knocking the gun out of his hand and knocking Luca back on his fat bottom.

It’s then Luca gets a look at his killer’s face. Daud can tell the exact moment the realization hits him. His eyes go wide, his mouth goes slack. And he trembles.

There’s a million times that he could say now, things he _wants_ to say. Tell Luca they couldn’t keep him down. That they weren’t going to win. That here he was, standing over Luca with the instrument that will end his life, and Luca _knows_ it, and mock him for that day. For thinking they wouldn’t pay for what they did to her. He wants Abele to understand. Wants him to hurt, to fear.

But when Luca starts crawling backwards, scrambling away, Daud leans over and grabs him by the collar. Presses his blade to his jugular. And then all that comes out of Daud’s mouth is “die, liar” as he cuts his throat.

Luca’s hands come up to stop the blood, but it’s too late. He’s already dead. He shudders once, and is still. Daud stands over him, his sword still in hand.

He should feel powerful. Vindicated. Or, at the very least, satisfied.

He’s not. It happened too quickly. Over too fast. Now Luca’s dead.

And Daud is alone again.

There’s a creak behind him. Daud turns his head to see Joshua shifting in his chair. He’s staring, wide-eyed, at Abele’s bloody body, but then he just wets his lips and opens his mouth. “If you’re going to kill me too, just hand me his pistol and I can take care of that for you.”

His voice only trembles a little bit. It would never have fooled anyone, though. The humor can’t hide the boy’s palpable fear.

“I’m not here for you.” Daud turns around, his back to the corpse on the floor.

“Oh.” Joshua’s eyes are big, owlish, staring straight through him without meeting Daud’s stare.

“You Joshua Copper?”

He blinks, his spectacles magnifying the action. “Copper...yes! I am.” He stands up then, wiping his palms on his pants. He’s tall. Probably taller than Daud, already. “Did Lily send you?”

“Lily?” Daud squints his eyes, but then it clicks. “Right, right, Lily. She asked me to make sure you got out.”

“Oh, bless her.” Joshua links his fingers together in the front. “She’s the best sister a guy could ask for.”

Daud nods. “She’s a...nice girl. Cares about you a lot.”

“Is she safe? Is Reed with her?” Joshua shifts from side-to-side, his eyes darting around the room.

“Yeah. They’re working for my...employers.” Daud glances at the ground. He’s still trailing blood on the floor. “They’re safe, and have access to food and elixir. Better off than most of Dunwall.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in months.” Joshua lets out a breath, looking up to the ceiling. “Luca’s been looking for her. I thought, if he couldn’t find her, you know, she must be dead.” He shakes his head, laughing a little. “Should know my sister better than that. She’s crafty. If there’s a way, she’ll find it.”

Joshua looks familiar in a way Daud can’t explain. Was it just his resemblance to Rose? No, Rose had more weight to her face, more red in her hair and her skintone. Reed doesn’t look like either of them-plus he’s about twenty shades darker. And he knows he hasn’t seen those two before yesterday. Where has he seen Joshua?

“Sorry I can’t bring you back for a family reunion,” Daud says gruffly. “Bosses wouldn’t like that.”

It wasn’t just that. Daud didn’t give two shits if he pissed Thalia off, and Lizzy had pretty much given him a pass to deal with Joshua as he saw fit. She didn’t seem to think, though, about the fact that Joshua had been living and working with Luca Abele for the past several months. That they’d soon be harboring and protecting the future Emperor of the Isles, and everyone around him could pose a threat. He knows Rose said her brother could be trusted, but, well, they haven’t seen each other in a while.

Joshua, surprisingly, just nods. “That’s fine. It’s best we stay separated for now. Makes us harder to find.”

Daud raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment.

“I can find a place to hide for a while until this all dies down,” Joshua continues. “If you can get me past the guards, I can make my own way from there.”

“There’s some stuff in Luca’s quarters that I need.” Daud says, then remembers why he had to come to the Cat first. He sheathes his sword and moves over to Luca’s body. “I can sneak you out the front door. Unless you know of a better way out.”

Joshua cocks his head, watching Daud carefully as he loots through Abele’s coat. “Out of the hotel? Not really, but there is a VIP entrance here in...what are you doing?”

Daud looks up, glaring. “I need his room key.”

At that, Joshua produces it from his own breast pocket. Daud blinks as Joshua hands it over. “Why…”

“I always keep the key when he’s drunk,” Joshua says dryly. “So all the time. There’s been a few instances where he’s lost it or locked us out of our room with the key inside.”

“Appreciated.” Daud grits his teeth. “You said something about a VIP entrance?”

Joshua nods. “In the basement. Lets out somewhere near the distillery, but I’m not sure where. The door’s always locked.”

“Well, lucky for you, I have the Madame’s master key right here.” Daud holds it up, spinning the ring around on his finger.

Joshua nods, impressed. “Trade you. Did you steal this out of Madame Prudence’s office?”

“Close. I killed her.”

“You killed Prudence?” Joshua says, a little too loudly. Daud scrambles to put his finger to his lips, but Joshua just pushes his hands away. “It’s fine, these rooms are practically sound-proof. I mean...good. That’s good.” He puts a hand on his chin, looking to the floor. “I’m glad she’s dead. Prudence was a horrid woman.”

Daud nods along. He knows. He knew that when he killed her. “You were staying in the same room, right? Did you need anything from there?”

“No, I keep everything I need on me.” He pats his vest pockets. “I do have some baubles in a jewelry box under my bunk, but they’re yours if you want them. Least I can do. Just don’t report me to the Abbey for the bones.”

At that, Daud has to chuckle. “Don’t think you need to worry about that with me.” He bends over and picks up Abele’s pistol, turning it around and offering the handle to Joshua. “You can take his sword too, if you want it. Dunwall’s dangerous now. You’ll need to protect yourself.”

Joshua accepts the gun, though he’s shaking his head. “Oh, I’m hopeless with a blade. Reed’s beaten me. I’m a halfway decent shot, though.”

“I talked to the leader of the Bottle Street gang about you. They’re willing to take you in until we can send for you.”

“I think I’d be better off trying my luck with the sewer rats, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

Daud walks over to the balcony door, peering out and checking the other windows for busybodies. He motions Joshua closer. “Come on. We’re going on this way.”

“Outside?” Joshua raises his eyebrows, but he approaches nonetheless. “The ledges are slippery. I’ve tried escaping that way before. What if we fall in the water?”

“You know how to swim, don’t you?”

“Yes, but…” he trails off.

Daud peers back to size Joshua up, wondering how he’s going to go about this. It would be safest to Blink. Joshua was right in that scaling the outer wall was dangerous, that they risked slipping and falling into the river. Daud could swim, mostly everyone could, but it was dark and there was shit that lived in the Wrenhaven he could go without dealing with. He’d be revealing his powers to Joshua, but that was a calculated risk. He hadn’t Blinked with another person before.

It was possible, he knew, as the people who assaulted the Tower had similar powers, and one had absconded with Thomas. But whoever did that had been taller than him, able to lift him off the ground.

Daud could not pick Joshua up. The dumb kid was taller than Daud even in his lifts. He might be able to carry him fireman-style, or...

“Get on my back,” Daud grits his teeth. Joshua double-takes.

“Uh...what?”

“Get on my back. I’ll get us out of here.”

“I have two fully functioning legs, thank you very much. Your back is not meant to hold up two adult men. That’s a lot of stress on your spine.”

Daud curses under his breath and throws the door open, grabbing Joshua around the waist and hoisting him up just enough so his feet don’t touch the ground, and he Blinks.

Joshua’s gasp is muffled by the sound of the wind whipping by them, but Daud still shushes him when the land. He Blinks again, down to the second floor, and enters the brothel again through the Ivy Room.

Joshua jumps off the railing and turns to face Daud, his cheeks red with excitement. “You’re Marked!” he says, breathlessly.

Daud grunts. “Yep.”

The boy hops from foot to foot. “That’s so cool!”

“Pipe down or I’ll stick you back in with Abele’s corpse.”

“Sorry.” Joshua stops jumping, but his smile still threatens to break his face. “I just...can I see it? Just for a second?”

Daud fixes his stare on him. He shouldn’t encourage this bullshit. But it would make the kid shut up, and this could be over with faster. Daud rips off his left glove and shoves his hand out. Joshua runs his fingers over the markings. “Whoa…”

Daud snatches his hand back. “Time’s short. Let’s go,” he says, tugging his glove back on his hand.

Joshua follows rather quietly from then on, to Daud’s relief. They sneak out past the lobby and into the staircase, at which point Joshua takes the lead.

_‘Power, intelligence, and beauty. The traits they were taught to value above all else. All three inherited a witch’s wit, but just smarts was never enough.’_

“It’s down here, somewhere,” he says, not glancing back at Daud as he descends the steps. “I’ve gotten down here a few times, but I’ve never been able to pick the lock before someone found me.”

“You know how to pick locks?”

“Not _well_ , but I can. My sister and brother are both better than me.”

That was almost impressive. Even Daud never got the hang of picking locks. He’d have to remember that, though, that the Copper kids could do that. Daud takes Billie back out and aims her at Joshua’s retreating back.

_‘He loves his sister, but resents her strength. And is jealous that she was born a woman.’_

Daud jumps over the railing at the bottom of the steps, stopping Joshua in their tracks. He peers through the wall using Void Gaze, taking care not to turn towards the boy and show him his eyes.

“One more thing,” Joshua starts. Daud puts a hand up, telling him to stay quiet, but he continues on anyway. “There’s a safe in Abele’s room.”

“Uh-huh.” He can see two people near the door, but they appear to be women. One wearing a long coat, the other wearing pants and an afghan tied around her upper body.

“I don’t think he ever kept important stuff in there, you know, papers and things that should be locked up. I think it’s mostly gold and the like.”

One bends down at the door, fiddling with the handle. The other sits down and puts her head in her hands. Just more whores. Probably trying to escape as well.

“But in case you do need something in there,” Daud lets his eyes return to normal and turns back to Joshua. “I saw the code over Luca’s shoulder. It’s four-two-zero.”

“Come in handy. Thanks.” Daud holds his hand out. “This is where you get off. Good luck, kid.”

Joshua takes it, absolutely beaming. “Thank you. Really, thank you.”

He turns and pushes open the door. Daud lingers behind for a moment, sliding his foot into the door to listen in.

“Violetta! Reneé!” Joshua’s shoes slap against the gravel. “What are you two doing out here?”

“Freezing our asses off. What are you doing out here, Josh?” One of the women asks.

“Don’t call me that. I’m escaping. For real, this time. I have Prudence’s master key!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” The other woman says. “Let’s get out of here! You’ll never _believe_ who saved me.”

And Daud listens, until their footsteps patter away, into the cold Dunwall night, and the VIP door slams shut behind them.

 

* * *

 

He has to finish this quickly, Daud thinks as he lands back on the Captain’s Chair rooftop. Someone will try checking on Abele sooner or later, and then they’ll find the barred door and the bloody corpse. Maybe they’ll make the same mistake twice and keep the guards swarmed around the murder scene, but he wasn’t about to push his luck. He wants to be long gone before the murder is discovered.

The key turns in the lock and Daud is quick to step in, shutting it with the utmost care behind him. The room is even messier than Void Gaze had originally given away.

Abele’s desk is pushed up against the far wall, out of the way, his safe sitting on the floor next to it. A military cot is set up in the corner nearby, with a pot of pink flowers at the head. Must be where Joshua slept. Poor kid, no privacy. Daud ignores the bunk for now and proceeds straight for the desk.

Apparently he’d been using Joshua as a clerk, because the contents of the desk are by far the most organized thing in the room. Everything labeled, neatly filed. One drawer is devoted entirely to content regarding the plague. Death counts, asset seizures. One holds a pile of letters from Luca’s parents and brother. Daud shuts that drawer very quickly.

The bottom left-hand drawer has the Lurk seal burnt into the wood, and Daud opens it. It’s filled with rocks. And ridiculously shallow.

Daud almost rolls his eyes as he starts taking out rocks, removing the false bottom. They could have at least put effort into hiding it. The rocks took up maybe the top third of the drawer.

Underneath, there’s a leather satchel emblazoned with a K. Stuffed to the brim with papers. It slips out of Daud’s fingers as he grasps it, and he has to slow down and remind himself to pick it up carefully. He does, and places it on the desktop. Opens the side. Spreads the first few sheets out.

It’s all in code.

Daud nearly throws the entire thing in frustration.

It’s there. Thomas’s location and condition are _right fucking there_ , right in front of his face. But he can’t read it. Fucking Delilah. He’s going to tear her goddamn head off, cut out her tongue and rip her eyes out of her skull.

Daud forces himself to take a breath. So what if he didn’t know where Thomas was being held right away? It wasn’t like he was going to take these papers to Lizzy and march straight there. Dawn would be upon them before they even reached their destination, and Daud would have been up for over twenty-four hours straight by the time he got started. It would make him clumsy, stupid. Might jeopardize him getting Thomas out safely.

He’d take it back to the mill. Let the assholes decode it themselves while he takes a well-deserved snooze, then set out when he’s prepared. It wouldn’t be long now. He almost had Thomas back. Almost.

Daud pushes the papers back, then snatches the top one up again and holds it close to his face. The symbols blur, and he grimaces and holds it farther away. All looping patterns, strange letters that looked like the ones he knew but weren’t. He shoves it back in, mumbling curses under his breath all the while.

The rest of the drawers hold nothing of relevance to Daud. Luca had technically been in Delilah’s inner circle on account of him fucking her, but he was no mastermind. More interested in partying than carrying out his own devious plots. Probably just as well he would never be Duke now. The title would now fall to his younger brother who, from what Daud remembered, was rude and entitled but wasn’t an outright sociopath like Luca. Daud can’t remember the little shit’s name now.

Daud swipes the gold ingots and canisters of silver dust in the safe, passing over the creepy ragdoll with buttons for eyes and the lock of hair that probably belonged to Delilah. He considers throwing a match in for good effect, but he didn’t want to risk burning the place down. Were all safes fireproof? Billie’s were, but they were top-of-the-line stuff. Nobody would ever sell the Empress something second-rate.

Whatever. Daud closes the damn safe before he can change his mind.

The box under Joshua’s bed is pushed far back into the corner, and obscured by a wadded-up towel. Already looks suspicious, considering the rest of the kid’s area was obsessively neat. Daud pulls it out and begins rifling through it. There are indeed a few bonecharms in here, and three goddamn runes. The rest is all gaudy jewelry, stuff he probably nicked from either Abele or the succulent company he kept. Daud pulls out one gold and copper signet ring, adorned with the symbol of the Kaldwin family.

Well, it turned out Luca Abele’s little assistant was quite the little thief. Daud almost chuckles as he puts the ring back and closes the lid, tucks the entire box into his coat. How had he managed to get Delilah’s signet ring off her?

Balls. That kid had balls.

Daud’s jacket is quite laden down with stolen treasure by now, but he’s almost done. Just a hop and a skip back to Lizzy. He does a quick survey of the room, keeping an eye out for anything important or valuable, but comes up lacking. The panties on Luca’s bed don’t qualify as either, though he considers taking them just to throw in Lizzy’s face. There’s a few painting on the walls, surrealist and dripping with color. He recognizes Delilah’s work, and strides by. They wouldn’t be worth the coin she had spent on the canvas. Daud locks the door back up and heads for the front.

The servants must have gone to bed by now, because it’s deserted downstairs. Daud creeps through the front door and throws Luca’s room key into the sewer, just to really fuck with their investigation.

He Blinks through the rooftops, keeping an eye on the guard presence below. Once Luca’s murder is discovered, the district would be thrown into complete chaos. Two high-ranking nobles assassinated in the same brothel on the same night, and two more disappearing mysteriously. Well, Joshua wasn’t a nobleman, but still. The drama. The Regent coming down on the Watch like a bag of hammers, wanting to know how the hell they had let all this happen. A complete shitshow.

 _‘This place will be a mess, once they’ve discovered what we’ve done,’_ Billie says, echoing his thought. _‘But now? Nothing but quiet.’_

She almost seems like the old Billie sometimes. Daud almost smiles.

Lizzy is hunched over in her skiff when Daud returns. Daud might say she was sleeping, but her mask obscures her face. Regardless, she jumps when Daud taps on the steering wheel.

“Outsider’s fucking…” She reaches for her blade, but then she takes in Daud’s somber form standing over her.

“Did you have a nice evening, Miss Stride?”

“Fuck, don’t you be calling me that too…” Lizzy grumbles as she sits up in her seat. “Can’t help but notice that there’s no kid or weird old guy behind you. I’m assuming the worst here.”

“They’re fine.” Daud steps into the back of the skiff and sits himself down. “Zhukov didn’t want a ride, and Joshua is with some people. Safe enough.”

“You find those papers?”

At that, Daud frowns. “It’s all in code.”

Lizzy takes off her mask, slapping her knee with it. “Fuck. I mean, we can deal with that, I just...shit.” She sighs, tipping her head back. “But Abele is dead, right? You killed that sonofabitch.”

“Dead as my will to live.”

“Damn. Nice, Daud.” Lizzy turns back to grin at him, then rifles around for something in her pocket. “Think this calls for the good smokes. Honor’s all yours, asshole.”

Daud accepts the cigar, lets Lizzy light it for him with her whalebone lighter. He sits back and feels the engine rumble in his bones, the bob of the water. He closes his eyes, sticks the cigar in his mouth, and feels all his muscles relax at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck, I did not anticipate this chapter running so long. I think the main problem is that a normal narrative is focused more on introspection and the protagonist's actions, and Dishonored is way more about watching and listening. So I'm describing all that and I still have to make, like, an actual story. 
> 
> Anyway. Some notes:
> 
> There's a lot of architecture in this chapter that I did not have names for.
> 
> Idk how locks have really changed over the years, but nowadays the lock on your door handle doesn't really do jack. You can crack that open with a credit card, or some jiggling if it's a cheap lock. Or a wild Daud can come along and give it a good kick. Your deadbolt is what's stopping thieves and shit. This has been a PSA. 
> 
> I 100% imagine Billie's transition from starving homeless girl to Literally the Empress as the Princess Diaries. She definitely set someone on fire at some point. Probably her father.
> 
> Hope y'all liked Joshua, my bitch of an OC son, because this is the last we see of him. Unless I ever get around to posting my other fic. He's probably my favorite of the three siblings.
> 
> For those who haven't read The Corroded Man, Zhukov basically recreates the Whaler gang with Galia. Corvo thinks Daud is back at first, but someone's mentions Zhukov's height and that is what convinces him he's not Daud. We can take that in two ways. Either the fan consensus that Daud is really short and angry about it is canon, or that Zhukov is a fucking tree. I'm going with both because it's funny.
> 
> I'm debating whether to give Daud another power or not. I wanted everyone to keep their original powers, (which is why we have Corvo Possessing Daud in the first chapter; Corvo and Jessamine don't *have* Pull) but Daud's set feels kind of...lackluster? Daud has five active abilities, as opposed to Corvo's six, and three of them do basically the same thing. I suppose you could consider Arcane Bond Daud's sixth ability, but tbh I think that should have been lumped into together with Summon Assassin. Both of those abilities will be heavily nerfed as well, due to Daud both not having his powers as long and not currently running the assassin orphanage. So we got Blink, Void Gaze, Pull, a weak-ass Arcane Bond, and eventually Bend Time. I'm thinking of adding Semblance, as it would be a nice replacement for Possession, and Billie could have theoretically passed it along in her weird Void state. I would say it wouldn't fit his character, as Daud's not really the infiltration type, but he does don an Overseer's mask in the one mission, so... (or I could just give him Domino; the devs seem to love throwing Domino at everyone)


	7. On Branding Heretics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzy abuses a lot of furniture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an 18k chapter so y'all can just deal with the end notes being what they are.

Lizzy whistles a song as she steers the skiff across the river. She doesn’t try to make conversation. Daud smokes down her cigar and sits with his head resting against his seat, watching the sky lighten and turn pink as the sun rises on a day he should have never seen.

He supposes the fatigue will hit him later. He’s been awake since yesterday morning, was running around and being active for, fuck, he doesn’t know. Eight hours? Ten? But Daud is used to going a day or two without sleep. He’s had trouble sleeping for as long as he can remember, and he could never afford to let tiredness affect his mind. Especially not when Billie’s safety depended on it.

No one comes down to the docks to greet them. Everyone’s probably still asleep. Daud and Lizzy trudge up to the mall entrance by themselves, and the intercom buzzes to life.

“What’s the password?”

Daud leans forward and speaks into the intercom before Lizzy can open her mouth. “Whalebone.”

Lizzy gives him a dirty look as he pulls back. Daud stares back, nonplussed.

Reed throws the door open with a wide grin. “You’re back! Granny said you’d make it back!”

“Yeah, yeah. Pipe down, squirt.” But Lizzy says it with a smile, ruffing Reed’s hair as she steps past him.

“Did you do it? Did you kill the Duke’s son?” Reed says as he bounces from foot to foot. When Daud nods, he pumps his fist and jumps into the air. “I knew you could! Zhukov got back a few hours ago, I’ll go let everyone know you’re here!”

Reed scurries off then, his shoes slapping against the tiled floor. Daud watches him go and wonders how his tophat doesn’t fall off.

Daud turns back and spies Rose sitting on the steps. Her hair is free from the beehive and knotted dreadlocks spill over her shoulders, the snarled tips reaching her waist. She stands up as Daud approaches, her hands clasped in front of her chest and her eyes absolutely pleading with him. Fearful. Hopeful.

“He’s safe.” And that’s all Daud needs to say.

Rose’s face breaks into relief, and she bounds off the steps. She throws her arms around Daud’s shoulder before he can stop it.

“ _ Thank  _ you.” 

Daud nods and tries his best to gently extract her. “He’s staying in the Distillery District for now. He says he can make his own way.”

“Oh, he can.” Rose grins. “Joshua’s the smartest of us three. If anyone can make it on their own, it’s him.”

In the background, Lizzy coughs. “I was gonna bring him back with us, but knife-man here said he didn’t want to come.”

“That’s good. That’s...that’s what we agreed on.” Rose’s smile disappears, and she looks thoughtful for a moment before she starts digging into her pocket. “I know you did this for the right reasons, but-”

“Don’t reward me.” Daud holds up a hand. “Keep it. Whatever it is, you need it more than I do.”

Rose is quick to shake her head. “No, please. I want to help you. I can always make more.”

Daud pauses for a moment to mull that over, the fact that she made something to give to him, and Rose takes the opportunity to press the charm into his hand. It’s bigger than the ones he’s been using. Three-pronged, pure white and held together with black wire where the bones meet in the middle.

“You made this?” Daud runs a gloved thumb over the etchings, and Rose nods.

“I put some of my favorite enchantments in it,” she says, and starts pointing to the different prongs. “This one will make you more agile, and this one makes you a bit faster when you’re sneaking. And this one-” she presses her finger to the carving. “-I’m not entirely sure about all it does, but it makes water taste really good.”

“That’s one of your favorites?” Lizzy puts her hand on her hip.

“It tastes  _ really  _ good.”

“You made this?” Daud repeats, taking his glove off and touching the inscriptions. One prong is cracked ever so slightly, and Daud worries it with his pointer finger. “You know how to make bone charms?” 

Rose’s eyes are at the floor, her boot toeing the line in the linoleum. She doesn’t meet his gaze.

_ ‘She’s powerful,’  _ Billie says, impressed.  _ ‘She can be either a powerful ally, or a disastrous enemy. Fortunately for you, she’s only interested in protecting those she loves.’ _

Rose opens her mouth, but as she does so a door at the end of the mall bangs open.

“Lizzy! Daud!” Edgar Wakefield stretches his arms up to the ceiling before jogging forward. “You did it again!”

Daud turns back, but Rose already has her head ducked and is scurrying off.

“Luca Abele died a fucking coward,” Lizzy says, grinning. She meets Edgar and they smash their fists together. “The Regent must be shitting herself by now.”

Edgar laughs, picking her up by the waist and spinning her around. “It’s really happening! We’re taking down the Regent, we’re really doing it! We’re putting an Emperor on the throne!”

“That part’s going to be trickier,” Daud coughs. Edgar frowns, puts Lizzy back down. Daud motions for them to follow him. “Come on. I’ll tell everyone.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ bad,” Lizzy tells Edgar, whose face has gone white. “Kid’s still alive. We’ve just hit a bit of a snarl.”

Still pale, Edgar nods and begins following along. “Everyone should be gathering in the main hall. I woke Thalia up a bit ago, told her we weren’t waiting on her ass to put make-up on.”

Daud finds himself nodding along as he walks, though he’s tuning Edgar out. A snarl. That’s all it was. A code they’d be able to crack.

They would be able to crack it, wouldn’t they?

His mind is turning. Nobody would know how to decipher the code. Thomas would remain lost, somewhere in the city, alone and wondering when Daud was going to come for him. Until Delilah rooted them out, killed everyone who would come to his aid. Then she would let Thomas out. Sit him on a throne and slip a ring on his finger, and spend the rest of her life whispering in his ear and controlling his Empire.

He clenches his fists. No. He was going to find Thomas. And once he was safe, once he was out of Delilah’s reach, then he would kill her.

The table is filled by the time they arrive at the mill. Thalia sits at the far left end of the table this time, and Zhukov sits in the seat she occupied the day before, at the right head. Paul has switched seats as well, taking the seat next to his mistress. The Dressmaker sits at his old place, to Zhukov’s right, and looks profoundly uncomfortable about it.

Galia is sitting to Zhukov’s other side, staring blearily at the cup of coffee in front of her. Daud slides into the seat next to her, shaking his head when the Dressmaker offers him tea from the pot in the middle of the table. Lizzy takes her place to Daud’s left, next to Jerome, who is busy fiddling with a black box with orange wires sticking out of it. Edgar takes his seat in between Paul and Lydia’s unoccupied seat. 

“Well, it’s nice to have everyone all together finally,” Thalia says, with a pointed look across the table. Zhukov gives no indication he notices, however.

“And now we’re here.” he says, never turning his head. Daud’s eyes linger on Lydia’s empty seat. She was not present, nor was Ricardo or the Coppers. Gerald was in the kitchen preparing breakfast, but he was the only one of the servants privy to the meeting.

Zhukov gazes over everyone and no one in particular, his red goggles betraying nothing. “I think this is an appropriate time to congratulate Daud, both for coming to my rescue last night, and for removing Luca Abele from play.”

There’s a smatter of applause, and Daud stares straight ahead.

“What are we clapping about?” Lydia is walking through the entryway, quickly followed by Rose, who darts over to the kitchen. Gerald immediately begins scolding her, though everyone pretends not to hear. Lydia walks around the table as Edgar fills her in.

“Daud killed Abele. We’re one step closer to the crown!” he grins. 

Lydia’s eyes light up, and she looks at Daud excitedly. “It it true? You killed him?”

Daud nods, looking past her. “Yep. I cut his throat and let him drown in his blood.”

There’s a clatter at the end of the table. “Let’s not be so vulgar, please,” Thalia sighs, picking up her stirring spoon. 

“You’re sending us to kill people, you don’t get to be prissy about the details,” Lizzy snarks. Daud smacks her arm and gets to his feet.

“We’re not as close to the crown as we’d hoped,” he says, pulling the satchel from his coat and tossing it on the table. “That’s all the information we have regarding Thomas.”

Galia eagerly grabs for the satchel and busts the fastener open, snatching the first paper from the stack. The entire table watches as her face falls. “It’s in code.”

“Excuse me?”

“Fuck, you’re shitting me.”

“That’s...not good.”

Lydia stands up to grab another sheet from the stack, holding it up to the light. “Is this Old Gristolian?” she asks, running her finger over the lettering.

“I don’t think so.” The Dressmaker is looking over her shoulder. “That right there,” he points to something on the page. “That looks like part of their alphabet, but this over here is something else. And those are modern numbers.”

“Let me see.” Jerome stands up and reaches across the table. In doing so, he jostles his piece of machinery, which hits Thalia’s saucer and teacup and sends it crashing to the floor.

“Outsider’s hairy…” Thalia jumps up. “Jerome!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he cries, grabbing a cloth napkin from the table and dropping to his knees.

Thalia puts her hands on her hips and continues berating him as if she doesn’t hear his apologies. “I told you not to bring that thing to the breakfast table!”

“Well, I’m sorry, do you want to be able to listen to announcements or not?”

“I want to be able to drink my tea in peace!”

“Okay, okay, it’s already done.” The Dressmaker is up, wrapping an arm around Thalia’s shoulders. “It was an accident. He apologized. Let it go.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Thalia huffs, but she takes the vacated seat the Dressmaker offers to her. 

Lizzy rolls her eyes and bangs her fists on the table. “If you’re done with the theatrics, we have real problems we need to solve.”

“Lizzy’s right.” Galia frowns over the paper she’s holding, rubbing her eye. “We need a code-breaker.”

Rose walks around the corner with a broom and dustpan. Jerome goes to take it from her, but she shoos him off, tells him it’s fine. He walks around the table himself to grab a paper as Paul noisily slurps his own tea. “Maybe it’s written in Serkonan? Would make sense, considering where the Duke’s from.”

“Base Serkonan dialect isn’t  _ this  _ different,” Jerome mumbles. “They have some different grammar and spell things oddly, but this-” he motions to the paper. “-is a completely new alphabet. This is a cipher.”

“Are you any good with that?” Edgar asks. 

Jerome shakes his head. “I’m a work-with-your-hands kind of guy. I’ve never been booksmart. Lydia, aren’t you something of a wordsmith?”

“I write poetry. Unless the secret lies in iambic pentameter, I won’t be much help.”

“Well, somebody needs to have a clue how to decode this!” Thalia yells, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

Silence falls over the table. Everyone slowly turns their gaze to Zhukov, who has stayed silent throughout this all, for their saving grace. The response, however, came from the opposite end of the table.

“Give it to Reed.”

Everyone turns. Rose is calmly sweeping up shards of ceramic, not even looking at them. It’s as if she hadn’t spoken.

“What?” It comes from Daud’s mouth first.

Rose leans the broom against the table, raising her head to meet their eyes. “Give it to Reed. He’s good with that sort of thing.”

Thalia’s bitter laugh breaks the silence. “And why,” she says in between breaths. “Would we trust a child with this? Half the people here have had the best education money can buy, why would he be more capable than us? You’re both illiterate.”

She’s overestimating the average education of their group, Daud thinks. Her and Lydia would be highly educated, sure, as daughters of nobles. Maybe Zhukov went to a good school, back in Tyvia. Galia didn’t, and Edgar and Lizzy were Navy-educated, which was a nice way of saying they were taught how to keep a logbook. The closest Daud’s been to formal education was whatever he gleaned from Billie and Thomas’s tutoring over the years. Paul, Jerome, and the Dressmaker could have theoretically received some quality schooling, but Daud doubts it. Maybe it was a reflection of his own substandard education, but Daud has a hard time seeing two or even three out of ten as half.

Rose, however, puts her hand on her hip and grabs the broom with her other hand. “We know how to read just fine, thank you very much. We taught ourselves.”

“So you’re barely literate, alright.”

“My brother started reading when he was two,” Rose huffs. “And he loves puzzles. We used to make up codes like this to write each other secret messages. He always made the hardest ones to crack, and was the first to solve ours. He’s smarter than you think.”

“Regardless of how smart you think he is,” Thalia very obviously rolls her eyes. “This is a serious matter. This is not a game little mudlarks play with their siblings to ward off boredom.”

Rose bends over to grab her dustpan. “Well, I thought I’d offer. If you can deign to ask us for help, you know where we are.”

She passes behind the table, and Daud is impressed by her restraint in not dumping the dusty shards into Thalia’s lap.

Thalia huffs to herself, and blinks when she finds all eyes on her. “What?”

There’s silence for a long moment, then Zhukov chooses this to be his moment to speak. “It was an interesting proposal. The boy might prove useful.”

“You can’t be serious.” Thalia rolls her eyes, turning back to the group. “You can’t all be serious! This is about finding the Emperor of the Isles!”

“That’s a common goal we all share, Lady Timsh,” The Dressmaker soothes, rubbing her shoulder. “We all want Lord Thomas back, safe and sound. We’re just trying to make it happen as fast as possible.”

“And we’re supposed to trust some street urchin to figure out where he is?”

“Do you have a better plan, Miss Timsh?” Lizzy shoots back.

They glare for a long second. Lydia looks around, uncomfortable, and Paul takes a big bite of his breakfast roll. Edgar nervously stares at Lizzy. Daud wishes for a cigarette.

Finally, Thalia breaks the stare-off. She sits back in her chair, crossing her arms and refusing to look at anyone. “Fine. Fine. Someone get Reed.”

 

* * *

 

Reed sits in Thalia’s vacated chair, his eyebrows wrinkling as he examines the paper.

“Can you decode it? How long will it take?” Thalia asks crossing her arms.

“Hard to say.” Reed doesn’t tear his eyes away. His purple tophat sits at an angle, threatening to slide down his forehead, and his shoes don’t touch the ground. But the expression on his face makes him look three times his age.

Daud ruffles the stack of papers in front of him. He’s tried looking through them, identify some sort of pattern, but the symbols just wave in front of his face.

Across the table, Thalia scoffs. “If you can’t do it, then-”

“Then what?” Rose glares daggers at her, gripping the back of her brother’s chair. “Are you going to waltz up to Dunwall Tower and ask politely for the key?”

Thalia mumbles something, but she turns away.

Ricardo, who seems to have been drawn in by literally everyone else crowding around the table, pulls on Rose’s arm and whispers something into her ear. She sighs, then turns to her brother. “So do you think you’ll be able to figure it out?”

“I don’t know. I mean, probably.” Reed bites his lip. “If it’s just a substitution cipher, it shouldn’t be too hard. There might be a transposition layer, which would get tricky, especially if it changes.” He picks up another sheet. “If they used a running key, we’re screwed.”

“You say those words like any of us know what they mean.” Lizzy says.

Rose sits on the armrest of the chair. “A running key cipher means it refers to another text. Usually a book.” She points to the one Lydia has set out in front of her. “So if Lydia and I agreed ahead of time to use her book here, I could write down ‘thirteen dash six nine’ and I’d be referring to the sixty-ninth word on the thirteenth page. We could use the book to decode it, but it would be useless to anyone who didn’t know what book we used.”

“There are hardly any numbers on here, though.” Edgar says, squinting at a page and frowning.

“That’s a really simple running key. They could mix that in with a substitution code.”

“Oh, that one’s easy.” The Dressmaker says, smiling. “My niece and I used to write notes to each other using a code ring. You just switch out the letters."

Rose nods. “That’s the jist of it, basically.” She shifts on her perch. “A transposition code means they messed with the order. I could write ‘Lizzy’ backwards so it wouldn’t be immediately recognizable as your name; that’s a transposition code.”

“But that’s not a code,” Lizzy argues. “That’s just writing shit backwards. Anyone with half a brain would figure that out in a second.”

“Yes, and they can be more complicated than that,” Rose groans.

Reed puts the paper down. “I  _ think  _ it’s just a substitution code,” he says. “But if it is, it’s the most complicated one I’ve ever seen. There are more symbols here than there are letters of the alphabet.”

“What does that mean?” Lydia leans over the table, her curious eyes scanning over the papers.

“Either they have multiple symbols for every letter, or they’re assigning symbols to sounds or groups of letters. Or both.” He picks up another sheet, already looking a strange mixture of exhausted and intrigued at the prospect. “Can I have some paper? And a pen? This is going to take a while.”

While Rose runs off to find him some supplies, Thalia flops down in her chair dramatically. “I can’t believe this. We’re trusting what, a nine-year-old to decode state dossiers?”

“I’m eleven, so shut the fuck up.” Reed raises his big brown eyes and looks directly at her, and it’s probably the first time Daud’s ever seen the kid make eye contact with anyone. Then  he’s swiftly interrupted by a swat at the head, courtesy of Ricardo, who leans over and whispers something about language very harshly in his strong Serkonan accent.

Lizzy gets to her feet, her chair scraping against the floor. “Well, Daud and I should be hitting the hay. It’s been a long night.”

Daud doesn’t want to go to sleep. He’s not tired yet, and he’s not eager to revisit the nightmares that plagued him in Coldridge. He has no reason to believe they’d abate now, here.

Plus he wants to stay here, watch as the letters are decoded. He can’t tear himself away now. Not when they’re so close.

Zhukov seems to read Daud’s mind. He still hasn’t moved, still sitting in the same chair absolutely motionless. “She’s right. You both have been awake too long to be of any use.”

“Get some rest, Daud.” Galia turns to him and pats his hand, half-smiling in a way that doesn’t reach her eyes. “We’ll wake you when we need you.”

 

* * *

 

Daud returns to his attic bedroom, but he doesn’t sleep. He’s still too wired. He knows he should sleep-he can’t go save Thomas in this state, even if they figured out where he was being held immediately. He needs to rest before they leave. 

But he doesn’t.

He starts with emptying his pockets. They’re full of coin and whalebone and stolen goods, enough to significantly add to the weight of his jacket. Daud tosses everything on the table, taking his coat off and hanging it up. It’s in remarkably good condition for what it’s been through. The red hides the bloodstains well.

Daud runs a wet rag from the basin by his bedside over his body and changes into something more suitable for sleeping. He wants to slide his feet back into his boots, because he’s always been weird like that, but he refrains. Feet that haven’t breathed in a while, leather that’s still damp from the river, good way to get fungus. Thomas would tell him that. Tell him to keep his feet dry. Daud puts on a fresh pair of socks.

He still won’t sleep, so he starts with sorting out his loot and supplies, setting aside what he’ll take to Jerome to resell. He paws through the coins he’s picked up, sorting them by value to make counting them a bit easier. He turns over one copper piece and nearly startles back at the face on the coin.

Short hair, pointed nose. Lips and eyelashes purposely made fuller to appear on the portrait, to make the profile look feminine. Large words printed over the picture. The wrong words. ‘DUNWALL FOR HER’.

Fucking Delilah.

Daud balls up his fist and throws the coin against the wall as hard as he can. Really? It’s been six months. What, did she go straight from the Empress’s funeral to the treasury, walked right up with her new coin design in hand? Could she be any more obvious?

Not only that, but the plague had Dunwall in an economic crisis. Billie had  _ stopped  _ production of new currency before Daud had left on his voyage. Delilah shouldn’t be minting any new coins, much less ones with her face plastered to them. There shouldn’t be a need for Regent coins anyway. A new design would be created when Thomas took the throne. And the old coins would continue to be printed for seven years after the Empress’s death, in line with tradition. More, if Thomas decided so. It was a sign of utmost disrespect to stop production of a coin bearing the previous ruler’s face before the acceptable period was up. 

Delilah wanted to be Empress. That much was becoming obvious. She had always been jealous of Billie.

That was stupid of him, he thinks as he sorts through the rest of the coins, to throw it away. It was money, as much as he hated Delilah’s face on it. A lot of these coins were, far too many for a piece of tender that’s been in circulation for a few months. But he doesn’t bother retrieving it.

The majority of the rest of the coins are Billie coins, with the correct motto of ‘EMPRESS PROTECT US’ over it. There’s quite a few of the masculine version, with Emperor Lurk’s profile gracing the front. Daud finds one of the previous Emperor, Billie’s paternal grandfather, which are becoming rare. Older Gristol coins are collectors items by now, worth more than their face value because of their age and scarcity. The last Empress before Billie, her great-grandmother, her coins were still around when Daud was younger. But they fell out of use sometime since then. The only Empress coins in circulation now had Billie’s face.

There’s a few foreign coins, with the picture of Duke Theodonis Abele or the dual profile of the King and Queen of Morley, and one lone Tyvian coin adorned with the image of a snowy landscape. They didn’t put anyone on their money in Tyvia. Some bullshit about equality.

Daud wonders, as he takes a golden Empress five-piece from the pile and holds it in his palm, what history would say about his Billie. Her portrait would hang in Dunwall Tower until it fell, and coins minted with her face would line collectors cases and museum displays for centuries. Would she still be called a Child Empress, whose rule would be overshadowed by her early ascent and premature death? Or would they remember her as the peasant girl who very suddenly became the most important person in the world, taking the throne at fourteen and working tirelessly for her people until her violent murder, not ten years later?

At the very least, her name would be remembered. Daud should be grateful for that.

He goes to put the coin back in the pile, but something keeps it clenched between his fingers. He doesn’t want to let it go. Stupid, yes. There’s thousands of coins like this.

Still. He gets up and crosses to the end table where he’s set up the rune he found in the waters outside the mill. Leans the coin against it.

It wasn’t a portrait, but it would do. For now. 

Billie’s been quiet all morning, but just in case she has something to say, Daud takes her out and gives her the chance. 

_ ‘I was forged of three fathers. Their lessons still course in my head, but I am fractured, shards of a woman. Half in the Void. What am I?’ _

Sometimes Billie talks like a seer. Sometimes she sounds like a half-baked riddle.

Daud is suddenly tired. He drops into bed and prays to the Outsider not to see Him there.

 

* * *

 

“..told you.” Thomas says, his smile bright and playful. “We need to bribe him with jello.”

Billie laughs, a full belly laugh like her father was known for. Daud smiles. She’s had so little reason to laugh lately.

“We still have time. I can send Quinn down to have the kitchen prepare some of that sour stuff he likes so much.” Billie grins, shooting a mischievous look at Daud, who rolls his eyes. She knows he doesn’t like green jello. Daud has such a strong sweet tooth it’s amazing he still has the seventeen teeth left. When had he lost the three…

Thomas and Billie are holding hands, laughing and teasing him together. The sight of the two makes him hurt with longing. Which is ridiculous because they’re right there. They’ve done their reunions; he’s home now. He doesn’t need to miss them.

Something’s wrong. The hairs on the back of Daud’s neck prick up before Billie even notices the guards’ absence.

It’s too late to get them inside, so Daud will have to fight off the assassins here. He uses his pistol, blasting away the beak-faced intruders into a cloud of smoke and blue feathers. When Billie repels her own attacker, Daud Blinks forward-how is he doing that?-and puts his own sword through the man’s back.

Nobody else appears, but Daud whips his head around, his pistol drawn and blade at the ready. “Billie.” She snaps her head at the sound of her name. Daud speaks through gritted teeth. “Run.”

“What?” Billie shakes her head. “Daud, we’re fine. You beat them. Thank you.” She’s smiling, but it brings him no reassurance. She’s in danger, she’s always in danger, why can’t she see it?

“No! Listen to me!” He’s yelling, but the words are getting smaller, harder to get out. “You...run! Go, Billie! Run and hide!”

Why isn’t she listening?! She just tilts her head, staring at his lips in confusion. She can’t hear him. He’s screaming so hard his voice feels the strain, but his words are plucked from his lips and never reach her ears. She doesn’t know.

Then Billie’s eyes widen, and she shrieks. Daud’s pistol falls to the floor. He loses control of his lips, his feet, his hands. The only thing he’s left with is his mind, and someone else is along for the ride.

He can’t move his head to see what Billie’s screaming at. Thomas runs up to Daud, grabbing onto his arm, his eyes wide with fear.

The strings pull at Daud’s arm, his hand darting out and his fingers wrapping around Thomas’s skinny wrist. He pulls, and Thomas stumbles into him, grabbing onto his coat lapel to steady himself. Just like he did when he was a child, overwhelmed and in need of the comfort Daud would always begrudgingly give.

Daud raises his sword, and shoves it through Thomas’s forearm.

He feels it all, the resistance of the flesh and muscle as he pushes his blade through, the tugs Thomas makes as he tries to get away. The confusion in his eyes.

In the background, Billie still screams.

 

* * *

 

Daud shoots up in bed, barely swallowing a yell. 

He’s in his attic bedroom, in the mill, in Draper’s Ward. People are downstairs. They’ll hear him.

Daud leans forward and pushes his wet hair back from his forehead. His back is drenched in cold sweat. His blanket, quilt, and pillow are all on the floor.

It was a dream, another goddamn dream. Daud closes his eyes. They were getting worse. Was it the Outsider’s doing? It didn’t feel like it. Getting pulled into the Void felt profoundly different from dreaming. Why would it change, though? Every time he’s dreamt of that day, it’s always a faithful replay. Always takes him by surprise. Letting him relive the horror anew, keep the pain fresh. Why would he be more aware now? Why would it  _ change _ ?

At least he hadn’t watched her die this time.

Daud shoves his feet into his boots and throws on a sweater over his wrinkled, sweaty shirt. It was freezing up in the attic. There was a stove up here, and it had been lit when he returned from the Distillery District, but it had gone dark since then. Probably no one wanted to risk disturbing him to tend to the fire, and he had forgotten about it himself.

He blows on his hands as he descends the stairs. The main floor is still drafty, too big to truly be warmed by the kitchen and the tiny stoves set up around the perimeter. Perhaps it was warmer when the mill was in business, with the combination of body heat from the workers and the giant, industrial looms buzzing away. But it’s still warmer than Daud’s attic.

The dim light streaming through the windows could mean it’s either late evening or early morning. Daud would guess evening, considering Reed and Lydia are both still at the table, surrounded by papers, and wearing the same clothes as the last time Daud had seen them.

“Daud, you’re up.” Lydia smiles at him, marking her place in her book with a ribbon. “Lizzy woke up about an hour ago.”

“She’s off being weird with my sister,” Reed adds, not looking up from his paper.

Daud approaches them and puts his palms down on the table. “Have you figured out the code yet?”

Reed bites his lip. “No, I-”

“Well, what’s taking so long?!”

Lydia places her hand on his forearm. “It’s a complicated cipher,” she says, gently. “We’re doing the best we can.”

Daud snatches his arm away. “It doesn’t look like  _ you’re  _ doing much of anything.”

Lydia’s eyes narrow at him. “I’ve been testing out the codes he’s come up with. We’re making  _ some  _ progress.”

“I know what they’re using for most of the vowels now,” Reed says, too brightly considering the context. “And I’m pretty sure this right here corresponds to a double S.”

“That’s it?” Daud leans over and pulls the paper towards him. “How can you even tell?”

Reed snatches the paper back. “Words have a pattern to them. If a symbol is used a lot in the code, it’s a common letter, which are usually vowels.” He takes a moment to rub his eyes. “Then it’s trial and error. It’s a lot of guessing which word is which and applying those symbols to the rest of the code, see if it makes sense.”

Lydia pushes her chair back, getting to her feet. “You went to bed before breakfast, are you hungry?” she asks, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I can find Rose or Gerald, and they can make you something. You need to eat.”

Daud brushes her off. “I  _ need  _ to know where Thomas is.” 

He doesn’t look back at the two as he marches away from the table.

Back up in the attic, Daud swears as he tries to get the little stove burning again. His hands aren’t as stiff anymore, but they’re unused to this work. He remembers how to do it, of course, but he never had to tend to his own fire at Dunwall Tower. Servants did that for him. The decade of palace living has rendered his hands clumsy with these menial tasks.

But he does get it going, finally, and Daud holds his hands over the heat and basks in the warmth.

He grabs another change of clothes from his tiny, pathetic chest of drawers, mentally noting to ask someone for a set of clothes that wasn’t either armor or pajamas, and leaves the room to warm up on its own. Down in the mill’s single shitty-ass bathroom. Daud scrubs the sweat and blood from his body, then drains the tub before it runs cold. He wants to sit in the bath, let the hot water thaw his bones, but he doesn’t feel like he deserves it. Not while Thomas could be freezing his ass off somewhere in the city, and Billie is cold and dead in her grave.

_ ‘I wonder if you remember me as I was. Sometimes I get glimpses, echoes of our past. You knew me.’ _

Did she not remember? The thought burns in Daud’s mind as he towels off, pulling on fresh clothes. Nothing Billie’s said so far has distinguished her as the Empress. She speaks in her voice, says things Billie would have said, but she’s never said anything about her past. Everything was cryptic, strange statements that reflected her omniscient view of the world. Daud would know his Billie anywhere, but he never thought Billie might not know herself.

He reflects on the things she’s said, things he remembers. The last thing she said to him, before he went to bed this morning, sticks in his mind. She had three fathers.

Well, she was probably counting him among that, the brat. He told her so many times as a kid that he wasn’t a dad, he was just the asshole who was feeding her. He didn’t want her to get too dependant on him, or feel like she owed him. But Daud had still ended up raising her. And as much as he tried to keep their relationship professional, he got attached.

The Emperor was certainly one of the others, obviously, but he couldn’t imagine who the third one would be. Was she counting the Emperor as two, both the man who created her and who picked her back up after she was grown, when he felt like being a father? That didn’t make much sense, but Billie saw things a different way. Maybe it made sense to her.

Daud tries to remember what little she said about her life before she met Daud. Perhaps her mother had married at some point, and she was referring to a stepfather. Maybe there was another man, in between. There would have to be a reason why she wasn’t with him anymore by the time Daud had first spotted her, and as horrible as it sounded, the only ‘good’ explanation would be that the man had died. Daud thinks of the Actor, and his stomach burns. There were plenty of people like him it Dunwall, plenty of uses they could find for small children, and he’s enraged at the mere thought of Billie being in the hands of someone like him. She had never mentioned anything, though, and Daud never had reason to believe she had been abused like that. Thomas’s behavior at first had been concerning, but he was non-verbal for the first few months and by the time he did talk to them, he had already stopped flinching whenever he was touched and trying to palm Daud through his trousers whenever he sat on his lap. Daud hadn’t brought it up afterwards, in case it jogged bad memories. He had wanted names, yes, wanted to find the people responsible and hurt them-but more than that, he wanted Thomas to move on with his life if he could forget.

Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe he should have talked about it with them. Then he could have killed anyone who had ever laid a hand on either of them.

Daud mulls the rest over as he returns to the attic. He’s half-tempted to just pull the Talisman back out, ask Billie herself what she remembers. If she knew her name. If she could tell him the things she always kept from him in life. He tells himself he doesn’t do so because she’ll never respond to his questions the way he wants. There’s a nagging voice at the back of his skull telling him it would be easier if he just didn’t know.

The attic is warm by the time Daud returns, and he goes back to his supplies. His money is neatly stacked according to denomination, and the valuables he acquired are piled off to the side. His runes and bone charms sit in a box on the under the desk.

Daud sits cross-legged on the floor and pulls the box towards up, dumps the contents out on the ground. He picks through the charms, examining the markings on each, holding them in his Marked hand and feels their magic flow through him. He’s a bit more attuned to it now, and he can get a feel for each charm’s purpose in this way. Makes him swim faster, cushions his falls, lets him hold onto his rage longer.

Some of them are cracked, and Daud tosses them back into the box. They’re powerful, yes-but the corruption equally so. The corrupted charms could easily screw him over as much as they could save his hide, and Daud can’t afford to gamble with his life right now. Not before he saves Thomas.

He does set Rose’s charm on the edge of the desk along with the other charms he’s settled on, destined for a hidden compartment inside his coat. It has three different effects and only one prong is cracked, so Daud thinks it might be an acceptable risk. Plus he can feel the magic inside it, alive in his hands. Billie was right. There’s power behind it. Rose may have butchered one of the carvings, but she still has talent.

The runes are all that’s left, and Daud assembles them like a puzzle. They’re identical in their inscriptions, unlike bonecharms. All bear the Mark of the Outsider on their surface. But there’s tiny, minute differences that set them apart. Chips along the edge, the material keeping parts of the bone connecting to the rest. They don’t fit together perfectly, and Daud rearranges them over and over again to get them to line up. The pieces weren’t created to come together with each other, and most likely never would. There was no picture they made. No larger pattern that the runes were meant to show. But his hands still move, tirelessly, to fit them together and the protests in his mind fall away.

Daud stares at the assembly of runes. The markings blur together, his vision wobbling something fierce. His eyes are dry, but his eyelids are stuck. His mind is quiet. He watches.

And then it’s done. Daud blinks, the images playing across his retinas fading. He feels...like he should be tired. But he’s not. His muscles, paralyzed just seconds before, are renewed with energy. His mind is sharp as ever. What more, there’s a new understanding of his powers. Ways he can use them better. And something new to focus them on.

He sweeps the runes back into the box, pushes it back under his desk. Now that he’s read from them, the runes don’t hold the same attraction anymore. He still  _ likes  _ them, but he doesn’t feel the same need to touch them, to keep them close. 

Daud makes his way back down the stairs. The windows are dark, and Daud blinks. The Month of Darkness had passed, and with it the winter solstice. It still got dark early, but he had been down here an hour ago and the light was just beginning to fade. Unless, of course, he had actually slept through the next morning and he was actually seeing the end of dawn. Which would be worse. How long had he been staring at the runes?

Lydia is still at her old place, but Reed is gone. Instead, Galia sits at the other end of the table. Zhukov is once again seated at the head, watching as the girls work. Creepily.

“Where’s Reed?” Daud asks as he approaches. Galia looks up at him, but Zhukov doesn’t even turn his head.

“Sleeping,” is all the answer he gets from Lydia.

Daud catches his remarks in his throat. Reed was eleven years old. It wasn’t fair to expect him to stay up all night to decode the letters. He wouldn’t have allowed Thomas to stay up all night at that age for any reason. Anyone would need some rest by now anyway.

Daud comes up to the table and leans over to observe their work. “How is it coming along?”

“Like a ton of bricks,” Galia groans. “Reed explained it to me, but I still don’t get what we’re doing.”

“Just keep trying with the code I showed you. You’re doing fine.”

Galia grumbles under her breath. “It’s all Pandyssian to me. None of this makes sense.”

“Have patience, dear Galia.” Zhukov doesn’t move, but his voice comes out loud and clear, unmuffled by his layers of furs and scarves. “The answers will come out in time. Everything will work out the way it should.”

Well, Daud couldn’t wait around for things to shake out the right way. He doesn’t believe in karma, and he can’t rely on the universe to do what’s best. If Daud wanted things a certain way, he had to make it happen himself.

He walks away from the table without another word, into the kitchen. He’s never been an exceptionally good cook, and he hasn’t cooked for himself in years, but damn him if he’s going to wake someone up to make him dinner. 

Though Daud realizes, once he’s in the kitchen, that he has absolutely no idea where anything’s kept. Everything’s in boxes and crates, probably because this wasn’t built to be a kitchen, and the oil lamps are dimmed on account of the sleeping people in the corner. A plank that made for a makeshift table during the day has been taken off, the cot underneath it occupied by Reed and Ricardo, sleeping back to back with a single thin blanket thrown over them.

He walks up to the side, tilting his head. It’s the first time he’s seen Reed without his tophat on. His brown hair is cut haphazardly, like Overseers do sometimes for public humiliation. He looks way younger this way, face relaxed as he sleeps, his body dwarfed by Ricardo’s long, langy figure. They’re both skinny, far too skinny. Two noblemen wouldn’t be able to fit, even if one was a child.

Daud is painfully reminded of Thomas. Billie wasn’t quite this young when he met her, and she had always acted beyond her years. Even at twelve, she had to think like an adult in order to survive. He had trouble thinking of her as anything younger than a teenager. Thomas, however, had not only been younger, but was allowed to be young. He had Daud and Billie looking out for him at first, and then he had an army of guards assuring his safety and a plethora of servants keeping him fed. He was allowed to run and play and study like children should be doing. And unlike Billie, he was allowed to make friends his own age. There was no worry about attachments or the inequality of their positions because there was never any expectation that Thomas would rule. 

Reed had more pressure on him than a boy of his age really should, yes. No eleven-year-old should have to worry about where he’ll sleep or how he was going to be fed, or if Overseers or City Watch would storm in and kill him just for having the wrong allies. But in a way, Reed is more free now than most sons of nobility. Definitely more than Billie was, after moving to Dunwall Tower.

Lydia wanders into the kitchen, and Daud turns and busies himself rooting through the icebox. That probably didn’t look too wholesome. The Dressmaker was plenty a creep for all of them, they didn’t need to add Daud to the number.

If Lydia noticed him staring at Reed, she doesn’t comment. Instead she just leans forward, bracing her forearms on the countertop. Daud pulls out some unidentifiable meat and drops it in a pan. He’s never been picky.

He silently wishes for Lydia to leave, but she just continues to stand there, her eyelids drooping as she watches. Daud realizes she probably doesn’t know how to cook. That this is probably fascinating to her.

Stupid fucking nobles, teaching their kids dumb shit and leaving them unable to fend for themselves. If Daud had ever had children of his own, even if he had all the money in the world, he’d have still taught them to cook. Nothing fancy. Enough to survive on their own, if they needed to. He had taught Thomas a few basic things, and Billie had already known a bit when they met. He had taught her how to skin an animal, though. She only knew how to clean fish before that. She had eaten a lot of seafood while living with her mother, apparently. Not that you could do much hunting in inner-city Dunwall, but they caught squirrels and raccoons to supplement their shitty diet of garbage scraps and whatever stale food they could buy on Daud’s unreliable income. Billie had been so proud the first time one of her traps caught a raccoon, and she had both killed and skinned the animal herself before bringing it to Daud to fry up. Her grin had been wider than the Wrenhaven during flooding season.

“Do you need something?” Daud spits out. Then he sees the crestfallen look on Lydia’s face and knows he should feel bad about it. He just wants to be left alone with his thoughts.

“No?” Lydia blinks. “I just needed to give my eyes a break. Everything’s starting to look the same.”

“Never good,” Daud mumbles. He adds in some salt. That was usually his cue to drag Billie away from her paperwork. Her eyes would wander and she would blink excessively, then Daud would grab her pen from her hand and tell her to go to bed. “Are you making any progress?”

Lydia nods to herself, not meeting his eye. “Some. Like Reed said, it’s mostly touch and go. It’s guesswork, and if we guess wrong, then we’re back to square one.”

“Mmm.” Daud can’t find a spatula, so he flips his meat over with a butter knife, careful to avoid getting hot grease on his hands. They stare at the sizzling meat in silence for a moment. “Thank you.”

That makes Lydia perk up a bit. “For what?” she asks, her light blue eyes meeting his.

“For what you’re doing here. Agreeing to teach Thomas, and now your help with the code…” Daud attacks the meat in the pan, cutting into it to check the inside. “It’s very selfless of you.” Not what you’d expect from someone of her station, but Daud doesn’t say that.

Lydia taps her fingernails on the counter. “Oh, I don’t mind.” She leans forward, still watching Daud’s dinner cook. “I...like it here. I feel useful.”

“Can’t imagine it’s what you’re used to. Cold, crowded, shitty food…”

“Yes, but I’m  _ doing  _ something.” Lydia pushes herself up. “Ever since my niece was born, I’ve just had this sense of...like I’m wasting my life.” She shakes her head. “To be a Boyle is to always look beautiful for everyone to admire, make small talk with people you don’t even like, and then drink to forget how unhappy you are with it all. Oh, you worked for the Empress. You know what I’m talking about.”

He really doesn’t. He and Billie certainly kept busy enough, and by the time parties did come around he usually convinced her she’d earned a night off and she’d get happy drunk. She was far from unfulfilled. And as long as he was by her side, he felt the same. 

But he nods anyway.

Lydia continues on. “I didn’t...I don’t want Maria to grow up thinking that’s all there is to life. That the only thing she has to look forward to is finding a tolerable husband and making other women jealous.”

“You want her to make something of herself,” Daud says quietly. Lydia nods.

“Her mother is...she’s brilliant, really. Esma could have ended up at the Academy, if our father hadn’t limited her studies.” She sighs. “It’s all just so...frivolous. Father would have a conniption if he could see me now, but if he had it his way, I would have never amounted to anything. Just another pretty face for men to stare at.”

These were the times Daud was glad Billie had become Empress so young. There had been no pressure to get the princess primed for marriage, for finding a husband suited to help her rule. She would have always been the partner with the power, of course, but Daud knew that the Emperor would have arranged a marriage for her based on her spouse’s political prowess. And in that way, Billie would have been rendered down to just that. A pretty face and a ticket to the throne. 

Becoming the Empress so young had given her advantages in weird ways. The sons of Dunwall’s nobility might have pursued her for the perks involved, but she had the power to tell them to get bent if she so chose to. Or have Daud beat them off with a stick. He was rather fond of that option. By the time Billie was old enough for men to start objectifying her, she was too strong of a figure to be seen as one. Being a Child Empress empowered her in that way.

“But you didn’t come down here to listen to me.” Lydia waves her hand. “I don’t think we disturbed the boys at least.”

Daud glances over to the cot. Ricardo and Reed are both indeed still zonked out. He takes the pan off the heat and slides his dinner onto a plate. “Where’s Rose? Does she sleep in here too?”

“I don’t know? She usually does, but I have no idea where she is tonight.” Lydia shrugs.

A young woman sharing a space with two males, one of whom was an adult she wasn’t related to. How improper. Or it would be, but Rose was a serf, so nobody cared about her honor.

“She sometimes goes to visit with Granny, so maybe she’s there.” Lydia continues. She gets to her feet. “I should probably get to bed soon. And you,” she eyes Daud’s hunk of meat, raising an eyebrow. “You should probably cook that a little more. You’re going to get sick.”

“I like it rare.” He tears a chunk off with his front teeth and chews on it as he stares her down, until Lydia steps out of the kitchen and bids him goodnight.

Daud eats standing up, the dry meat catching in his throat. He remembers, as he’s chewing the last of it, that he used to fry meat with whiskey to keep it tender.

 

* * *

 

Daud manages to nap for a little bit, just until dawn. Now that his physical fatigue is fading, Daud seems to need less sleep than he used to. Sleeping is more to pass the time until morning, when normal fucking people are up. After he watches the sun rise, Daud grabs his box of trinkets and other various bits and pieces he picked up in the Distillery District and marches on down to the mall. 

Jerome squints at an emerald ring, holding it up to the light. “It’s definitely real, that’s for sure.”

“Is it worth anything?” Daud asks.

Jerome shrugs his shoulders and places the ring back on the table. “Should be. Emeralds are pricy bastards.” He taps his finger on the surface. “Finding a buyer might be tricky. Though it could go either way. Nobles will always want their luxuries no matter how bad things get, and with half the laborers in the city dead there’s not many left to make them.”

“So you’ll be able to turn a pretty profit over these, then.”

Jerome smiles, nervously. “Yeah. Definitely.”

He goes on examining the jewelry, and Daud is left twiddling his thumbs. He wants to go check on the code’s progress again, but last time Galia threatened to push him into the canal if he asked again before noon. She’s probably gone to bed by now, but Daud would rather not risk it.

The front door squeaks, and Daud raises his hand to greet the Dressmaker. “Hey. Welcome to work.”

“You startled me.” The Dressmaker puts a hand on his heart. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here, Daud.”

Daud just blinks, and Jerome pipes up. “Hey, brother, do you know anything about gemstones?”

“About...what?”

“Gems. Jewelry, you know?” He puts the necklace he’s examining down. “You used to make clothes. Did you work with the bling too?”

“Oh. No.” The Dressmaker shakes his head. “I once made a dress encrusted with rubies, though. Does that count?”

“Didn’t you make that for Billie?” Daud turns around in his seat, raising an eyebrow.

The Dressmaker seems to brighten slightly. “I did! And she looked ravishing in it.”

She did look beautiful in that dress, but Daud still hadn’t liked it. It had looked far too much like a wedding dress for his comfort.

“That’s cool and all, but no. That doesn’t count.” Jerome rolls his eyes, going back to his work. “Something wrong? You usually don’t come in ‘till later.”

The Dressmaker rocks back on his heels, his long, spiny fingers dancing over each other. “I just couldn’t sleep very well. Just...worried.”

“About Alex again?” Jerome looks solemn.

The Dressmaker nods. Then, to Daud, “My niece. Her name is Alex.”

“The one in the Academy?” Daud asks. “I’d think that would be the safest place in Dunwall right now.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, but with Sokolov disappearing so mysteriously and the Regent putting all the Academy students to work on a cure…” He sighs. “She’ll be in constant contact with the afflicted. We’ve already lost her parents and both her brothers to the plague. It’s just the two of us now. If something happens to Alex, I just...I don’t…” The Dressmaker covers his face with his hand.

Daud stares at the grains in the wood, willing Jerome to say something. The only things that pop into his mind are nasty thoughts, things that harp on the Dressmaker’s creepy nature, things that will undoubtedly make him a huge asshole if he says them right now. Billie stirs in his hand.

_ ‘He’s a man of simple desires. He admires the honesty of children, and seeks to protect their innocence. Don’t judge him too harshly. This is a man who longs for the simplicity of childhood.’ _

Well, Daud certainly felt like a dick now.

“Hey, man, worrying about it isn’t going to help her.” Jerome reaches across the table, puts his hand on the Dressmaker’s arm. “I’ll get the speaker up soon, then we should be able to hear some announcements. Might be something about the cure progress. They’re not going to let one of their best alchemists drop dead of the plague before it can be cured.”

The Dressmaker removes his hand. He doesn’t say anything, but he nods, his eyes and nose red and puffy.

“That what you were doing yesterday?” Daud asks, motioning to the heap of metal and wiring spread out on a nearby table.

Jerome nods without looking away from the jewels. “Our speaker went on the fritz about a week ago. Thalia’s been badgering me to fix it, but she also wanted me present at the meeting. I don’t know what she wants from me, sometimes.”

“She’s used to having more servants,” The Dressmaker supplies. “She doesn’t realize that there’s labor involved in everything we do, that we can’t split ourselves into two to get things done.”

That would be a nice power, Daud thinks.

“We’re not her fucking servants…” Jerome grumbles. He puts the piece down and looks back up to Daud. “Well, this shit, the stuff you said you found in the Duke’s room? That’s all worth a pretty turn. But this-” he motions to the pile of jewelry Daud pilfered from the Golden Cat. “-is all costume jewelry. I could sell them for their raw materials if you’d like, but it won’t be worth much.”

His eyes are worried, like he thinks Daud is going to stab him for appraising them wrong. Daud just shakes his head. “Nah, don’t bother. I’ll give them to the girls. They’ll have some fun with it.”

Jerome nods, looking relieved. “Great. I’ll pack the rest of it up, let you know when I get it sold off. There anything you want me to buy for you? Ammo? Weapons?”

“Sleep darts,” Daud says, shoving the worthless jewelry back into Joshua’s box of stolen treasures. The jewelry box itself was worth something, but it was useful enough that Daud held onto it. Jerome goes to take the actually valuable jewelry, and Daud hold up his hand. “Wait.”

He gives Daud a curious look, but Daud pays it no mind as he picks through. He already took out the Kaldwin signet ring, both because he knew it couldn’t be resold easily and because he didn’t really want people asking how he got ahold of it. It was also kind of smugly satisfying to have it, knowing she had taken his. He selects two other pieces from the pile and shoves them in his pocket. His fingers linger over a ruby bracelet as he thinks of Billie, how the square-cut red gems and golden cuff would look against her dark skintone. She always looked nice in red. But then his memory turns to her blood, spilling onto the pavillion floor, staining her skin. Daud pushes it all away. “Okay.”

He pretends not to see Jerome raise his eyebrow at him.

The Dressmaker perks up, calling to Jerome as he puts his goods away. “Show him the flower water! If he likes the sleep darts, he’s going to  _ love  _ this.”

“Right! Almost forgot.” Jerome starts opening drawers and rifling through them.

Daud stands up to get a view on what Jerome is doing. “Flower water?”

“It’s laudanum. Made from distilling poppies...Ah! Here we go.” He produces a small bottle, thick green glass and a snap top. He hands it over to Daud without further explanation.

Daud flips the top open and raises it to his nose. The Dressmaker waves his arms, and Jerome nearly yanks it out of his hands. “No! Not here!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do with it?” Daud yells.

Jerome just shakes his head. “I just told you. It’s  _ laudanum.  _ It’ll put you right to sleep.”

Right. It did that. Daud wasn’t good with drugs, never did them recreationally and never had a reason to learn more about them. But he remembered some things, sometimes. Billie was prescribed laudanum once, after a particularly bad tooth infection and needing one of her back molars pulled. It was the only way she could get any sleep while it healed. Daud had also been given some after he snapped his ankle, on the garden steps of all fucking things, but he had refused to take it after the first dose. Made him sleep like a rock. He worried something might happen, Billie could be attacked in the night and he might sleep through it, or be too dazed to help her.

“Could be useful.” Daud reaches across and plucks it from Jerome’s hands.

“It’s damn potent. Let someone take a good huff and they’ll be out like a light for at least an hour.” Jerome says, wringing his hands. “It’s not the same as a sleep dart, though. They won’t be totally unconscious. Just mind the noise around them.”

Still, that was a huge advantage. Daud could choke someone or knock them out and then hold the laudanum under their nose. He couldn’t think of many reasons why he’d still be in the vicinity after an hour anyway. Lives could be spared, and he could sneak through undetected.

_ ‘Of course, why go to all the trouble when a blade to the neck will accomplish the same thing?’ _

Daud holds back his chidings of “hush, Billie” before Jerome and the Dressmaker can hear them. He swallows. “Thank you. This is...this is very nice.”

Jerome has turned around again, busying himself with wires and cords. “I can’t take all the credit. Rose gave me the recipe, showed me how to do it. ‘Poppy tincture’, she called it. Girl knows her flowers,” he mumbles.

“Which makes sense, considering she’s named after one,” The Dressmaker adds.

“If only all our names fit so well.”

Daud rolls his eyes at the two and gets to his feet.

 

* * *

 

Daud drops the jewelry box onto the table. Reed raises his head, but he seems to be the only one who takes notice. He ducks his head again without sparing it much of a glance.

He slides into the seat besides Galia. Zhukov is absent, thankfully. He can see Gerald and Rose bustling about in the kitchen, working to prepare lunch for everybody. It’s quiet, save for the sound of pens on paper.

Galia looks up at him with a ready smile. “What’s up, boss?” He can practically see the threat in her eyes. But he’s not here to ask about the code, and it’s nearly lunchtime anyway.

“I have something for you.” Daud reaches into his coat. Galia puts her pen down and perks up in interest, turning to the side. She watches as Daud takes the earrings out of his pocket.

Her eyes light up at the sight, and she nearly squeals. “For me?!”

“I lifted them from Abele’s room.” That was practically the truth. “Seemed like your style.”

She grabs them from his palm and immediately goes to put one in. Pearl drop earrings, fell just far enough to brush her jawbone when she turned her head, getting fatter as they went down. Simple, but elegant. Definitely Galia.

_ ‘Her heart is full of bitterness. Something I cannot see draws on it.’ _

“I love them!” She squeaks. She puts the other one in and shakes her head to get them to swing. “Thank you!”

Daud smiles, but her joy makes a dark part of him pang. Billie had done a similar thing, the first time she got to wear dangly earrings. She had, with time, come to hate earrings and only wore them on special occasions when she was advised to, and even then she wore studs if she could help it, but she had been young then. She was all excited to get her ears pierced, hang jewels from them like a proper princess. Then she balked when she saw the piercing gun, and Daud had held her hand through it with minimal eye-rolling, though afterwards she claimed it hadn’t hurt at all. 

The first pair she was allowed to wear was for the winter festival, nearly reaching her shoulders and adorned with little red bells. So they jangled every time she turned her head. She had giggled and shook her head to hear them ring, feel them bounce. Daud had been ready to rip them out of her head by the end of the night. Now he’d give anything to hear it again.

Thomas had also gotten one of his ears pierced, which would have been fine with Daud if he hadn’t done it at fourteen, without telling him, and had Billie do it in her quarters with a sewing needle. Those two would have killed themselves a dozen times over out of stupidity if Daud hadn’t been around.

Galia startles him out of his thoughts by wrapping her arms around him. She withdraws, quickly, but gives him a smirk as she turns back to her paper.

Gerald exits the kitchen and starts walking towards the staircase, and Daud takes the opportunity to slide into the kitchen. Rose is at work chopping up a slab of meat. She has to lay one of her hands over the end of the knife and push her body weight into it in order to make a cut. Daud pulls the necklace from his pocket, considering just draping it around her neck and then darting away without another word, but if she’s anything like the rest of the women in his life then she’ll likely punch him out of surprise. And she also has a knife, so that  _ really _ wasn’t likely to end well.

He ends up tapping her shoulder. Rose turns to him with a confused face. “What?” she asks.

In response, he holds up the necklace.

It’s nothing fancy. A gold chain, a single diamond pendant. Definitely more expensive than peasants could afford, but it was nothing compared to some of the gaudy pieces he found in Joshua’s jewelry box. Far plainer than any of the crown jewels that Billie had worn during her life. Simple and pretty.

She blinks, first at him, then at the necklace. Then, “I can’t accept this.”

“Please.” Daud really doesn’t want to get into it. He’s not good with gifts. He usually just left Billie and Thomas’s birthday presents in their room while they were asleep so he didn’t have to deal with this awkwardness. “Please. I just wanted to thank you. For the charm, and the laudanum.”

Rose looks back to the meat, her hand still clutching the knife. “You saved my brother,” she mumbles.

“Well, he’s the one who stole this. He let me take his spoils,” Daud says. “So you can think of it as a present from him, if it makes you feel any better.”

That brings a small smile to her face. “Joshua’s been stealing from the rich and noble this whole time?” She shakes her head. “Hypocrite...alright. Thank you, Daud.”

She goes to take it but stops at the sight of her hands, covered in blood and other juices. Daud motions for her to turn around. “Let me.”

His hands are too rough for this kind of thing, scarred and clumsy with such small actions. But they remember how to do this, having helped Billie with plenty of stubborn necklace clasps over the years. So Daud tries his best to keep his hands from shaking as he pushes her heavy dreadlocks out of the way and closes the fastener at her nape.

Rose’s freckles just seem to increase in frequency away from her face, and the back of her neck is almost brown with the splotches. Thomas’s freckles had faded a bit as he got older, but even when they were at their strongest, they weren’t this crazy. The thought suddenly dawns on Daud that Rose is probably the only person here even remotely close to Thomas in age. Well, besides Thalia, but she was stuck-up enough that Daud doubted Thomas would enjoy her company. He would be well-protected here, taken care of and would have Daud to rely on, but still. Thomas would need a friend.

This isn’t the place to bring that up, though. So when Rose looks down at her chest and smiles at the pendant, Daud excuses himself and leaves the room before she can thank him again.

Lydia and Paul are at their places by now, and Thalia sits at her own table off to the side, looking pouty. Daud wants to point out that there were currently six seats unattended and not everyone was going to be present for lunch, but he leaves it alone. 

_ ‘She feels unimportant here, though she doesn’t think it in so many words. It’s not a feeling she’s accustomed to.’ _

Right. She could stew alone for all he cared. 

Paul turns to him as he rounds the table. “Hey! Daud-io!”

Daud gives him a dirty look. Lydia looks down at the table and tries to hide her giggles.

Galia turns to Daud as he sits down. “So what’s with the box?” She points. “You dropped it off, but you didn’t say what for.”

“It’s from the Golden Cat,” Daud says. He wishes for a cigarette. “Not worth selling. Knock yourself out.”

She gives him a curious look, while Paul snatches the box and opens the lid. “By the Void, it’s like a treasure chest! Well, if pirates were prostitutes and all they buried was their shitty jewelry.”

He turns the box over and dumps the contents out onto the table. Reed glances up long enough to look annoyed. Galia stands up to get a look at it all. Lydia picks up a ring that’s rolled her way.

“Obviously fake,” she says, turning it over in her hand. “A diamond this large could buy this entire mill. And nobody-” She rubs at the band, grimacing as flecks of paint stick to her finger. “-would use this kind of setting for it.”

Paul snatches the ring from her and shoves it onto his pinky finger. He’s already wearing three beaded necklaces. “So what? It’s pretty.”

Lydia opens her mouth to respond, but confusion fills her eyes and she closes it again. Then she shrugs and grabs a necklace from the pile. “You know what, you’re right.”

Galia is already sliding bracelets onto her arm. She throws one at Paul, who laughs and tries to fit it over his fist. Lydia gets out of her chair and walks up behind Reed, draping a string of wooden beads over him.

“You’ve been working so hard. You deserve a break,” she says as Reed turns his head up, a protest ready on his tongue. She pats his head.

Reed brings his hand up to finger the beads. “This is pretty.” He almost smiles.

At the end of the room, Lizzy enters and strikes a pose. “Hey, sluts!”

“There are children here!” Daud yells to the pile of jewelry. 

Lizzy pays him no mind. She wanders up to the table, Edgar trailing people here, and slaps her palms down. “Well, what the fuck do we have here?”

“Hooker jewelry,” Paul says. His shirt collar is obscured by beads and strings, and he’s fit rings on most of his fingers by now. Daud can see his skin bulging around them.

“Ooooh, cool.” Lizzy picks up a string of fake pearls. She doesn’t undo the clasp before trying to put over his head, and it gets stuck around her temples. “Fuck it, it’s a crown now.”

Edgar wrinkles his nose as he sits down. “You said you got it from a whore? It’s probably crawling with disease.”

“Oh, fuck off and have some fun.” Paul pelts him with a bracelet.

Daud sits back and watches them all divy up the jewelry. Reed takes extra for his sister, and Lydia laughs as she compares her expensive necklace of river pearls with the ones made of wood and paint. Even Edgar loosens up and tries on a particularly flashy brooch. Their joy is infectious. Daud finds himself smiling.

_ ‘Our hands do violence. But there is a different dream in your heart.’ _

Daud lowers his head to hide the somberness he’s sure has flashed across his face.

“So, can I ask a serious question?” Lydia says, after the they are all decked to the gaudy nines. Even Daud has a necklace of colorful beads on.

“You just did.” Lizzy drops her chin into her well-adorned hands.

Lydia ignores her. “Why couldn’t one of you be our assassin? I mean, it’s good that we got Daud out of prison,” she waves in his direction. “But it was a gamble whether we’d even find him in one piece. Not to mention we thought he’d be half-dead by the time he got here.”

“I’m glad you had such faith in me.” Daud bites back. Lizzy slaps his arm.

“You looked like the walking dead when I first saw you. We figured you’d be injured, starving and shit. You bounced back way quicker than any of us expected.”

“My point exactly,” Lydia continues. “We were expecting it to take weeks for Daud to recover, and that was  _ if  _ he survived the escape. But you and Edgar were in the Navy, right? And Galia was one of the Empress’s personal guards!”

Billie didn’t have a squad of bodyguards, Daud thinks, besides him. There were the guards assigned to Dunwall Tower, which Daud personally vetted and only contained highly skilled officers who actually stood a chance at fending off assassins, but that was different. Their duty was protecting the Empress first, of course, but they had a range of other responsibilities. Daud’s position was purely to protect the Empress at all costs. Galia was skilled, certainly, but he’d have never chosen her to guard Billie’s life.

“I’m not exactly, uh, ‘cut out’ for the assassin life,” Edgar explains, straightening his lapels. “I don’t do stealth. Too big for it.”

_ ‘He has the bloodlust. But he would never have gotten as far as he has without Lizzy Stride. So he defers to her. He won’t think to resent it on his own.’ _

Reed pipes up from the end of the table. “Not all assassins are short! The Rat King is over six feet tall!”

“Well, it’s about more than being tall for me.” Edgar slaps his belly. “Unless you wanted everything to become a bloodbath, I wouldn’t be a good choice.”

“My sister still works for Delilah,” Galia says in a small voice. “I don’t think she wants to, but I doubt she can leave. If Delilah found out what I was doing, she’d have my sister killed.”

Daud fists clench under the table. Quinn. Young, sweet Quinn. May not have been the most capable fighter, but Daud kept her on more for her sharp wit and her medical knowledge. The girl had saved a few officer’s lives by providing first aid before a real physician could make it onto the scene.

If Delilah had hurt her, Daud would make her suffer all the more. Burn her and everyone she loves.

Lydia nods in sympathy. “I understand. If it were Waverly, I’d feel the same.”

_ ‘She loves both her sisters dearly. But she worries. The youngest Boyle is cold and cruel to her peers, and has never seemed to show anything akin to empathy.’ _

“You have a good point though, Lids.” Paul points a pen at Lizzy. “Why not you, Stride? You’re tiny, good at killing things. No one around you love that the Bitch Regent can use against you.”

“Well thanks, I appreciate you reminding me how lonely I am.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Well, I  _ wanted _ to try my hand at assassin work, but I-”

“She got sick.” Edgar grins. 

There’s the audible sound of Lizzy kicking him under the table. “I broke a rib.”

“Because you were sick!”

“Shut  _ up _ , Wakefield! I’ll still cough on you!”

Edgar just keeps laughing. Lydia raises an eyebrow. “Wait, so you had the plague? And recovered?”

“No, fuck off, I didn’t have the plague.” Lizzy huffs and crosses her arms. “I got pneumonia. In the middle of the goddamn summer.”

“It was fall by then,” Edgar mutters as he sips his tea. Lizzy just glares at him.

“Anyway. Yeah, half the city’s dying of a plague and I got laid up with fucking pneumonia, of all things. Had to move back in with dear old pops, so his nurse could treat it and dad could fuss over me like he cared.”

“The dad who owned the mill?” Reed asks.

“No, one of my other eight dads.”

“She managed to break a rib during one of her coughing fits,” Edgar laughs. “I had to bring her herbal tea and shit. She was a fucking mess.”

“Yep, cracked my rib and Trimble told me I couldn’t strain myself for eight weeks,” Lizzy sighs. “I still am, but it’s better if Daud does the heavy lifting for now. I can provide some support, help keep the old man safe.”

“Quit calling me old,” Daud grumbles. Billie would have gotten along great with Lizzy. Thomas will definitely like her.

Daud thinks on his bruises. How they healed almost literally overnight. How the ache in his joints abated. He had suspected he had some broken toes, but even those seemed to be perfectly fine now. The Mark had healed him. 

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Lydia actually looks worried. “Can’t someone else accompany Daud?”

“I’m not about to let anyone else put their grubby paws on my skiff.”

A door slams below them, followed by the sound of feet running up the stairs. 

“GUUUUUUYS!” Jerome bursts into the room, his face red and sweaty. He pants from exertion, but he’s smiling. “Guess what I did!”

“Considering you’re holding our old speaker in your hands, I’m guessing you fixed the speaker,” Paul says, boredly.

If Jerome picks up on his tone, he doesn’t let it spoil his mood. “Heck yes I did! Listen to this shit!”

He puts the speaker down on a table, grabbing for a heap of tangled cords and wires that looks like something they beat Daud with in Coldridge. His fingers find the right one, and Jerome takes several tries to plug it in. Then he waits with excitement written across his face. The machine crackles. Then-

**“-former High Overseer, Thaddeus Campbell, is not longer a citizen of Dunwall.”**

The group cheers. Lizzy gets up and goes to the speaker. “Wait…”

**“He now bears the Heretic’s Brand, and it is now a minor criminal offense to offer this individual aid or housing, in accordance with one of the oldest…”**

“Holy shit!” Edgar claps his hands together. “Daud, you took down the High Overseer? Just, while you were in the area?  _ Nice  _ one, man.”

Daud shrugs. “That wasn’t me. He was like that when I got there.” Right, he never told the others what had happened. Come to think of it, they hadn’t even asked. This was as good a time as any to fill them in. “The Pendleton twins were attacked too. One’s dead, the other’s missing. Not sure what happened.”

Thalia sighs in a dramatic manner from the side of the room. Daud had forgotten she was there. “Just as well. They were no friends to the Timshs.”

“Yeah, because that’s our goddamn priority here. Your fucking family,” Lizzy spits. Then, to Jerome, “Have they mentioned Abele yet?”

He nods, rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. Officially they’re blaming his assistant, who’s apparently missing now-” Daud rolls his eyes at the thought of skittish, malnourished Joshua being able to hold Luca down and shove a blade through that fat gut. “-but people have been talking. Word from one of my contacts over in the Cloud District is that people think the Butcher is responsible.”

That piques Daud’s attention. “The what now?” he says, sitting up straighter.

Everyone turns to look at him with confusion written across her face. Then Lizzy slaps her hands down on the table. “Outsider’s balls, you fucks, do you all keep forgetting? He was in prison getting his ass beat during all this.”

“But the murders started before he was arrested.” Lydia frowns. “The first few were vocal opponents of Empress Billie. They were all found completely torn apart-Daud, don’t you remember that?”

“We were a little busy with a plague on our hands,” Daud grits his teeth.

Edgar cocks his head. “Didn’t they blame Daud for that?”

“Yeah, at first.” Galia shoots back. “They still did for the ones that happened while he was away from the city. When they kept going on while he was in prison, then people stopped saying it was him.”

Daud was committing an awful lot of murders he knew nothing about, it seemed.

“Anyway.” Jerome approaches and puts his palms down on the table. “The Dunwall Butcher, the Hooded Felon, the Grim Stranger, the Wolf on Wyrmwood Way-there’s a few different names, but they all refer to the same string of murders. They’ve racked up quite the body count in the past few months, and the guard is stretched too thin to go after them.”

“More like the Regent doesn’t care enough to go after them…” Lizzy snorts.

Daud eyes search the faces around the table. “Who are they targeting? Anyone who opposed Billie?” Not that Daud would shed a tear over the people who were against her, but you couldn’t just slaughter people for saying so. The blame would have just been laid at the Empress’s feet. He wouldn’t have done that to her. 

Lydia shakes her head. “Nobody knows now. People against the Regent, people for her...seems like anyone even slightly important is fair game.”

“They’re all fucking brutal,” Lizzy says, with a gleam in her eyes. “Duchess Clothilda was scattered across eight different rooms in her mansion, and her kidneys and liver were just  _ gone _ .”

Ricardo happens to be passing by at that exact moment, and he runs forward to slap his hands across Reed’s ears. He yells something in Serkonan at Lizzy.

**“Attention Dunwall Citizens. The heir to the throne, Lord Thomas Lurk, was abducted some six months ago during his sister’s horrendous murder. He is still missing. Anyone with information leading to the return of the brother of our late Empress is required to report to the City Watch at once.”**

The group talks over the speaker with ease. Edgar turns to Lizzy, who is skillfully tuning out both the announcement and the angry mustached man between them. “Hey, I always wondered. Why do we have useless Duchesses that don’t rule anything, while another Duke and Duchess are in charge of an entire country?”

“The Duke of Serkonos’s full title is  _ Arch-Duke,  _ Edgar. They call him that because that’s what Serkonos chooses to call their rulers.”

“Oh, like we call Gristol’s the Empress?”

“No. That’s because they’re in charge of everyone in the Empire. Hence the name  _ Emperor. _ ”

“Oooooh.”

Daud ignores the two and turns back to Lydia and Jerome. “Are they  _ any  _ suspects? Could it be Delilah’s work?”

“I doubt it.” Jerome shrugs. “It would be tactically stupid, even for her. I personally don’t think it’s political. I think the Butcher is just someone really fucked up, and he’s counting on the plague to cover his tracks.”

Lydia leans forward. “Esma talks to a lot of philosophers, and there are some that are tracking the case. The consensus is that the Butcher is most likely a woman.”

Galia raises an eyebrow. “How can you tell?”

“Size of the wounds, for one.” Lydia sips her tea as if she wasn’t discussing murder. “The Butcher kills with their bare hands, and they were able to figure out the hand dimensions from there. I guess it  _ could  _ be a man. With very small fingers.” She puts the teacup down. “There’s other things like the body parts that were targeted and that all the victims were murdered in private, but I won’t pretend to know enough about criminology to explain that. Ask Esma.”

Jerome scoffs. “There’s no way the Butcher is a woman. Women aren’t serial killers.”

“And what makes you say that?” Lydia asks with a very neutral expression on her face.

“Because a woman couldn’t  _ do _ that! Women use poison and shit to murder, they can’t kill like that!”

Galia stands up and crosses her arms. “Do you want to test that theory?”

Daud stares at Jerome impassively. “Did you ever see the Empress up close? She could have cracked your skull like a watermelon with one arm.” He peers behind Jerome. “Or ask Lizzy what she thinks of that; I’m sure she’ll tell you.”

“What?” Lizzy turns around. Jerome quickly throws his hands up.

“No, no, that’s okay. My mistake. I get it.”

Galia sits back down. “Anyway,” she says, fluffing her hair. “Do you think it’s really the Butcher? With the High Overseer, and Pendleton and everything?”

“The Butcher doesn’t leave people alive.” Jerome shakes his head. “Even if they started now, it’s too clean. This isn’t the Butcher’s work. It’s just Dunwall panic, assigning blame to the first person they can think of.”

Daud knew that all too well.

Lydia shrugs. “Maybe the Crow Queen’s active again. She hasn’t done much of anything lately. A lot of people are starting to think she’s dead.”

Reed snaps his head up, the first indication that he’s been listening at all. “She’s  _ not  _ dead,” he says sternly.

Lydia holds her hands up. “I’m just repeating the gossip.” She leans forward to peek at Reed’s paper. “How are you coming along? Are we getting anywhere close?”

“Maybe. I think.” Reed bites his lip, his eyes still narrowed and angry.

_ ‘His intelligence would never be enough, and his magic could never rival his sister’s. But Reed had the one thing his siblings did not, one thing that held back his mother’s hatred for him. He was pretty.’ _

Daud is startled out of his thoughts when Lizzy strides over and slides herself into his lap. “Hey, big boy,” she says, and immediately starts laughing to herself.

“Get your bony ass off me, or you’re not going to have one much longer.” Daud bites.

Lizzy rolls her eyes, but she does slip back into her own seat. “Jerome, I hoped you put an OFF button on that thing, because I am  _ not  _ listening to it all through the night.”

“You can just unplug it, Lizzy.” Jerome sounds exasperated.

Daud nudges her to get her attention. “Have the announcements really been that frequent?”

“You have no idea. It’s been ridiculous. I couldn’t sleep the first few nights after we docked.”

Lizzy turns back to the rest of the group and gets sucked back into the conversation. Daud’s eyes pan across them all, to Jerome and Edgar chatting off to the side to Paul standing up and talking to Thalia. But his eyes return to Lizzy.

_ ‘She adheres to her own moral code. It is not one most would find virtuous, true, but it is important to her. She has lines she will not cross. Values she will not sacrifice. She is only brutal when the situation demands it.’ _

Gerald appears to announce lunch. Jerome ducks out, and Reed starts shoving papers into piles to make room on the table. Edgar says something to Lydia that makes her face screw up like she’s sucked a lemon. There’s the din of plates, the clink of glasses. Laughter.

**“This is a public warning. Former Royal Protector Daud, assassin of our beloved Empress Billie Lurk, has escaped state custody and is at large within the city. All sightings of this dangerous criminal are to be reported to the City Watch at once.”**

 

* * *

 

“Lizzy!”

Daud whisper-yells across the mall plaza. Lizzy is lounging on the staircase, trading verbal blows with Ricardo, who is sweeping up dead leaves a good twenty feet away from her.

“Psst! Hey, Lizzy!”

She finally turns towards him. Daud rounds the end baluster and stares her down. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” She tucks her arm behind her head. “What brings you to this neck of the woods? We headin’ out?”

“No.” Daud shakes his head. If only they were so lucky. “No, but come with me. I have something to show you.”

At that, Lizzy raises an eyebrow, lowering her arms and leaning forward. “If the surprise is your dick, I have to warn you I have a knife.”

“What? No.” Daud recoils slightly.

“I’m just letting you know. You wouldn’t be the first man whose dick I’ve had to chop off.”

“I promise you, this has nothing to do with either of our genitals.” He almost says it’s not inappropriate, but considering the subject matter, that was up for debate.

Lizzy shrugs and gets to her feet. She yells something unintelligible to Daud’s ears, and Ricardo spits back with something even he can identify as a string of curses.

Daud turns to Lizzy as they walk back to the mill. “I didn’t know you spoke Old Serkonan.” 

“I don’t. I just like yelling shit at him. Gets real funny.”

They don’t talk as Daud leads her into the mill yard. There’s no one out and about, but there are windows, and anyone could walk outside and see them. “Follow me,” he says.

_ ‘Her trust is hard to earn, but she is fiercely loyal to those who have done so. And there’s few people she trusts now more than you.’ _

Lizzy rolls her eyes, but she follows him into a narrow space in between the side of the mill and the concrete barrier wall that surrounds the courtyard. It’s still too open for Daud’s tastes. But it will have to do, for the moment.

He turns back to Lizzy, who crosses her arms. “Okay. I’m here.” She bumps her hip, and Daud is reminded for all the world of Billie whenever she got an attitude with him. “I’m serious, Daud, if you try to kiss me or something I’m going to stab you.”

“I’m not.” He extends his hand. “Close your eyes. If you don’t like this, I promise you can stab me all you want.”

She huffs, but she takes his outstretched hand and shuts her eyes. Daud pulls her towards him and slips his right hand around her waist in one swift movement, then lifts her off her feet and Blinks.

Lizzy lets loose a very un-Lizzy-like squeal and digs her hands into his jacket. Daud holds her tighter as they land on the pipe, then Blinks again to the roof of the mall before Lizzy has a chance to extract herself, and then most likely fall to her death.

Daud sets her down on stable ground, and Lizzy pushes him and jumps away. Her head spins around for a moment, her eyes eventually settling on Daud. “What the  _ fuck _ ?” She yells. “How did you do that? Where are we?!”

“Calm down. We’re on top of the mall,” Daud explains. Lizzy deflates, slightly, but the fury in her eyes doesn’t abate. “I told you I was going to show you something.”

“Okay, great, you showed me what the top of a building looks like!” She stomps her foot. “Now take me down!”

Daud almost laughs when the realization hits him. He never imagined Lizzy Fucking Stride being afraid of heights.

“In a minute.” With that, Daud takes the end of the bandage he keeps wrapped around his hand. Lizzy stops her panicking to take notice, her curiosity outweighing her fear for the moment. She watches as Daud pulls the last of the fabric off, and turns the back of his hand towards her.

Lizzy slaps her hand over her mouth. She removes it after a second, but her mouth remains agape. “Holy shit…” 

Daud presses his lips into a thin line. He had thought about what to say, how to explain this to her, but he can’t remember now what he decided on. So he just stays silent.

Lizzy grabs his hand and touches the markings. “Outsider’s balls…” she mumbles. “This is what was on your hand? You were so dirty that day, I couldn’t tell...I thought the black stuff was grease…”

Well, good that she was taken by surprise. That meant the others likely didn’t notice it either. Not that it would really be the end of the world if his allies knew, but…

Lizzy looks up at him and grins. “This is how you...oh my fuck! You  _ met _ Him! You met the Outsider! Did you see the Void? What’s He like?”

_ ‘A little bitch,’  _ Daud thinks. But he just shakes his head. “Getting past security turns out to be pretty easy when you can go over it.”

“Fuck, I bet!” Lizzy practically vibrates with excitement. “Is that what you did here? Teleporting, or whatever?”

“Something like that.” But not. Daud thinks of the Outsider, the way He dissolves into black and appears where He pleases in the same manner. That was true teleportation. “It’s more like...like I’m going really fast. Like the Mark is pulling me.”

Lizzy nods, like she actually understands this bullshit. “Like you’re...fuck, what’s the word? Transversing!”

That was probably a more accurate way to describe it. “I’ve been calling it Blink.”

Lizzy spins around. “By the Void, Daud, do you know how much cooler you are now?”

Daud hadn’t realized he was cool to begin with. Not very much, apparently, but it was something.

He thinks, with a pang in his heart, how he’ll never be able to show this to Billie. He’ll never see her face screw up in excitement, hear her tease him about being old. Never again.

But Lizzy is still standing in front of him, so he shakes off those thoughts. “There’s something else I think can do,” he says, brow furrowing in concentration. “But I’ve never tried it before.”

“Does this mean you brought me up here to be your test rat?” Lizzy stops bouncing. Daud lets himself show a small smile.

“Pretty much. Give me your hand.”

Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Should have figured...aw, what the hell? Why not?”

She reaches out her right hand to put in his left, and Daud shakes his head. She raises an eyebrow, but she gives him her left hand. He presses their palms together like they were shaking hands.

Daud lets the magic pool in his hand. He feels it thrumming through his body, the tingling spark of the Void flowing through his veins, his muscles and his flesh. Feels the heat radiating from his bones.

The Mark glows a bright, impossible blue. Lizzy stares, slack-jawed, and Daud concentrates. Slowly, he turns Lizzy’s hand over, so all he can see is the back of his own. The Mark is almost white.

It takes.

He feels his own energy flow from his palm to Lizzy’s, the tips of his fingers leaking magic into her veins. Lizzy gasps, and Daud both hears it and feels it. He can feel all of her, from her spiny fingers to her webbed little toes. Her still slightly cracked rib and the pain she feels in her left lung whenever she breathes, the breeze against the side of her head where her hair is shaved. For a moment, his energy is hers completely.

Daud pulls away. The Mark crackles against his hand, and his entire arm is sore. But his connection to Lizzy remains. Not nearly as strong, but he can feel her presence and her energy.

The electricity of the Void still flows in her veins, albeit less powerfully than in Daud’s. And she can feel it. Lizzy blinks and stares at her hand, then back to Daud. He motions to the long stretch of roof they have before them. “Go ahead. Try it.”

Lizzy turns uncertainly. She raises her hand, though Daud knows the magic isn’t centered there, like his. Her whole body feels the imprint and draws on it. 

She disappears in a cloud of dark smoke, and reappears maybe ten feet away. She staggers forward, trying to keep her balance as she waves her arms. “Fuck!”

Daud can’t help it. He laughs.

 

* * *

 

They practice all afternoon.

Lizzy’s Blink is indistinguishable from Daud’s, and interestingly, it doesn’t seem to drain her the same way. She does get tired though, and Daud hands her a vial of blue elixir, shows her how it replenishes her magical energy.

She also seems to have inherited his Pull ability, though she fails to activate Void Gaze. Still, two out of three wasn’t bad. Blink could easily save her life in a bind.

And the main reason he gave the Bond to her was to give her his advanced healing and his immunity to disease. And that’s undoubtedly working. Lizzy already claims to feel better, as they Blink across the canal and the sidestreets of Draper’s Ward. She laughs unobstructed, without pain in her chest. It makes Daud smile.

He pulls her aside as they’re making their way back to the mill. “Don’t speak a word of this to anyone,” he says, still gripping her upper arm.

Lizzy just laughs. “Geeze, not even Edgar? I tell him everything!” She must sense the seriousness radiating off of Daud, because she immediately drops her smile. “No, I get it. My lips are sealed. This is our secret.”

“Good.” Daud leans back and blows out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He didn’t know if he could do that again-didn’t know if he’d  _ want  _ to. The only person he could even think of right now that he might trust enough with the Bond was Galia. Paul could be a close second, better if he wasn’t attached at the hip to Thalia. He didn’t like Edgar. Zhukov was just- _ no.  _ He liked Lydia, Ricardo, and Rose just fine, but they weren’t fighters. 

Lizzy turns to him, uncharacteristic somberness coloring her face. “This is real shit, huh? You don’t have to worry about me keeping secrets. I’m all in with you.”

Daud settles himself down for bed without much ado, the exertion of the day catching up with him. It’s the good kind of tired-the kind that overwhelms his muscles and makes him sink into his pillow with satisfaction. 

He wakes up to the sound of banging.

Lizzy is five feet away from him, bringing her fist down on his table to rouse him. She had evidently learned from their last encounter.

Daud throws his pillow at her. “What the fuck do you want?” He groans. “What time is it?”

Lizzy seizes the pillow and smacks him over the head with it, jumping up onto the bed. “Reed did it!”

That wakes him up. “He cracked the code?” He goes to sit up, scanning Lizzy’s face for any sign of joking.

She just smiles, practically bouncing on the bed. “Better! He finished the key yesterday, and he worked all night to decode the letters. We have a location!”

Daud doesn’t even bother putting real clothes on before tearing down the steps.

Reed is sitting at the head of the table, surrounded by papers, looking completely exhausted but very, very satisfied.

“I can’t believe you stayed up all night.” Jerome shakes his head, smiling all the way. “You could have told us you broke the code. We could have translated for you.”

“He was on a roll.” Rose grins from her place on her brother’s armrest. 

Lydia throws her arms over Reed from the other side. “When this is all over, I am  _ personally  _ funding your education. Your choice of schools, anywhere in the Isles-hell, this kid could make it to the Academy!”

“I’m not that smart,” Reed says. But his grin only gets wider.

Daud approaches the table with wide, fearful eyes. Everyone goes quiet as they slide their eyes towards him. Reed, Lydia, Rose. Jerome and the Dressmaker off to the side, Ricardo behind Reed’s chair. Edgar sitting down to his left, Galia and Paul standing close together. Thalia is strangely missing, but Daud barely cares. He tries to keep his voice from shaking as he asks.

“Is it true? You know where Thomas is?”

Reed nods, and his smile slips from his face as he looks down and starts rifling through pages. “It wasn’t immediately obvious-they used code names for everyone, so I had to decrypt everything and comb through it to find a place where they slipped up.”

“There’s a lot of dirty stuff in here,” Rose mutters, rolling her eyes. “She put her goddamn letter sex in code. Like, who cares?”

“But I did find it,” Reed continues. “They used flower codenames for pretty much everyone. You can figure out who’s who pretty easily-Thomas was ‘Laurel’, and ‘Willow’ corresponds to Empress Billie.”

“What was Delilah?” Lizzy asks.

Reed actually rolls his eyes. “‘Dahlia’.”

“Of course.” Rose shakes her head, looking actually angry. “So fucking pretentious.”

“So where is he?” Daud’s knuckles are white on the table. He’s trying to avoid grabbing the paper out of Reed’s hand, but, well, if he doesn’t tell Daud soon, he’s going to.”

Reed frowns. “It’s not good news. They have him at Arnold Timsh’s place-Thalia’s uncle.”

Daud lets out a breath. Arnold Timsh. A barrister, if he remembered correctly. He’ll probably have his own bodyguard, a small Watch force guarding his home. Maybe a few extra since he’s keeping the heir to the throne captive. They couldn’t exactly keep an entire army stationed there, that would call too much attention. Completely defeat the point of hiding Thomas in a civilian’s home.

It couldn’t be too hard to get him out. Daud was envisioning fortresses out in the countryside, bunkers half a mile undergrounds. No, this? This would be easy.

“Sounds like wonderful news to me,” he says, and Reed shakes his head.

“Maybe for you, but Lady Thalia is not happy.”

Jerome steps forward. “I’ve been getting intel from my sources around the city. General Turnbull is due at the Timsh estate soon-could be today, at the earliest.”

Daud’s blood runs cold. “They’re going to move him.”

“Not for certain.” Jerome rubs the back of his neck. “But yeah, we figured that’s likely. The Regent is probably spooked, with Abele dead and his dossiers missing.”

Daud nods. He figured Delilah would put the pieces together. Still, though. He’d hoped he’d have more time.

“We should get going then.” Daud turns to Lizzy, but she just bats his shoulder.

“Where are you going in your PJ’s? Go put some fucking clothes on first.”

Paul clears his throat from across the table. “Lady Thalia would like to see you before you go too. I think you know why.”

“She’ll have to wait until after breakfast,” Rose murmurs, getting to her feet. “They’ll both be fucking useless if they don’t eat.”

After the quickest clothing change and inhalation of sustenance Daud’s ever accomplished, he leaves Lizzy in the main hall with the promise that he’ll meet her at the skiff. Thalia is outside the mall, overlooking the canal. Her back is turned and her hands are linked behind her. She doesn’t turn to face him, probably for dramatic effect.

“Daud,” she says as he approaches. He wonders if he should stand back or approach her. What the proper etiquette would be. Then he remembers where they are and that he’s stopped giving a fuck about being proper and polite.

“I was told to come see you.” He steps up to the railing. Thalia doesn’t bother looking at him.

“We’ve discovered that my uncle is working for the Regent, and that he’s been holding Lord Thomas captive. Obviously, I understand this means he has to die.”

Solemnly, Daud nods. He’d kill Timsh even if he wasn’t ordered to. That man in the Void, screaming at Thomas-it had to be him. Daud would kill him just for making Thomas afraid like that. And now, he’s Delilah’s ally. Most likely an important one, as he was entrusted with hiding the Royal Heir. He had to die. 

Thalia takes a dramatic pause to pull out a box of cigars. She puts one in her mouth and fumbles to light it, her face turning red as she inhales. Daud can tell she’s not used to doing this, but he doesn’t bother to correct her.

“Now,” she suppresses a cough. “You had no way of knowing this, but I’m an only child. My parents, my other uncle and my aunt, and all my cousins have been lost to the plague.”

“I’m sorry.” Daud says it automatically. 

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” Thalia takes another drag, and she does better this time. “Uncle Arnold is unmarried. If he has any children, they’re unrecognized and I certainly don’t know about them. I’m sure you understand what I’m getting at here.”

“You’ll be his only heir.” 

Thalia shakes her head. “The Timsh family fortune is currently held by my grandmother. She’s…” And Thalia looks almost sad for the moment. “She’s elderly. Can’t get out of bed, and she’s not sound of mind. It’s only a matter of time before she goes.”

Daud just nods. “And with your uncle dead, you’ll get his share as well. Congratulations, Lady Timsh.” He tries not to let disdain color his words too much.

Thalia turns to him with anger in her eyes. “No. My uncle, he’s rewritten her will. Without her input. I know this because he wrote my mother and my other uncle out of the will, and my grandmother was never informed of their deaths.” She puts the cigar down on the railing, letting smouldering ash drip onto the asphalt. “I don’t doubt he has measures in place to keep me from taking the fortune myself in the event of his death. He hates me.”

Can’t imagine why, Daud thinks bitterly.

Thalia continues on, paying Daud no mind. “What I want you to do,” she says, picking her cigar back up and biting the end. “Is take for me my grandmother’s last will and testament. Then, when this is all over and I can come out of hiding, I can inherit what is rightfully mine.” She drops the half-finished cigar on the ground and squashes it delicately with her shoe. “And maybe my grandmother will still have some time left. Maybe I can visit her again, and say goodbye.”

Daud has nothing to say to that. He watches the melancholy look on Thalia’s face until she snaps out of it, returns her eyes to him and straightens up. “So, Daud. Do we have a deal?”

She holds out her hand. White gloves, pure as the day they met. Daud stares at them for a second before he takes her hand in his, and he imagines blood from his own gloves rubbing off on hers, staining them red.

“Deal. I’ll take care of your uncle and get you your documents,” Daud says. It’s almost like old times. Over a decade ago. Taking contracts for petty thievery and the like, though he didn’t accept jobs that asked him to kill. The killing was always unplanned, just when someone fought back. He never felt too guilty about it then. He was just a working man, trying to make ends meet. Or feed his two streetrats.

Billie awakens as he steps away from Thalia.  _ ‘I’d like to tag along, if you don’t mind. Just to keep an old man safe.’ _

“Hush, Billie,” he whispers, his mouth set in a determined line and his eyes facing forward. He can’t get hung up on her musings now.

He was getting his Thomas back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's a lot of musing on video game lore here, just fyi. Just skip if that's not your thing. Some notes: 
> 
> I'm starting to realize I made a mistake in trying to shove in as many NPC's as possible. There's like, fifteen members of the conspiracy here if you count Trimble, who's working behind the scenes just like he does in canon. The OG has ten people in the conspiracy at this point. The scenes where they're all gathered are good practice, at least, but there was one occasion where I straight-up forgot Paul existed halfway through. Paul, Galia, and Trimble have no OG equivalent, so I think that's why I keep forgetting them.
> 
> Also the OCs. The Coppers just started doing plot relevant shit, and Ricardo sprouted a personality when I wasn't looking. Sorry. And I don't remember what fic it was who first made Quinn Galia's little sister, but I'm stealing it because it's adorable.
> 
> This is where my obsession with over-explaining things becomes evident. Original Dishonored: Oh, we decoded the High Overseer's book in about twelve hours, and we know exactly where Lady Emily is! Me: How? Who did this? Was it Martin? It was probably Martin. And I also wanted to bring attention to the fact that this conspiracy team is 107% more incompetent than the original one. It's being led by a Navy brute, an aristocrat teenage girl, and a toasted bagel cosplaying as a mummy. So like, they're not the most efficient.
> 
> It's a small detail, but it really irks me how money is treated. The fact that all the coins in DH1 have the Regent's face is so goddamn unrealistic. Even if he started producing coins the day Jessamine died, the majority of coins would still have her face, because coins are in circulation a lot longer than six months. The only explanation I can think of is that Burrows ordered everyone to swap in their tender, which...is possible. But improbable. Then in DH2 we're shown that the Isles all use the same money, and Serkonos has their own coin design, so why don't we ever seen coins from Tyvia and Morley? Dumb shit, I tell you. I did make up the bullshit about how Billie's coins should be produced for seven years after her death. There's actually no real-world laws or traditions I could find that parallel this, I just felt like it would be a thing. Empress Jessamine coins were still being produced during Emily's reign.
> 
> I kind of want to rewrite the first chapter and make Thomas the Emperor's second bastard child, because right now he's becoming Emperor literally because no one wants to deal with the headache of establishing a line of succession with Billie's fourth cousins or whatever, and that feels kind of flimsy. For some reason I didn't want Billie and Thomas to be biological siblings, but now I can't remember why. It would also give an explanation for Daud's BLATANT favoritism over Billie. But I'll probably be too lazy.
> 
> One of the Heart quotes about Esma says that she and Sokolov would talk about astrology when her family had him over for dinner. I take this to mean that Esma is actually pretty smart, or at least interested enough in academia to hold up a conversation with Sokolov. Lydia seems more of an artistic genius-she pretty much just wants to be left alone and play her music. They're not great people, but they're not bad, for Dunwall aristocrats at least. Waverly is the only one I really don't like as a person. I'm trying to skirt the line with giving these characters redeeming qualities, but without romanticizing their negative ones. These guys are still sacks of shit. Lizzy's still bloodthirsty and mean, Lydia is still a spoiled aristocrat. Their flaws should be understandable without being excusable, because morality isn't black and white.
> 
> ANOTHER thing that bothers me with video games. How knocking people out is treated. My dudes, if you smash a person's head to the floor and they're out for more than a couple seconds, they're not sleeping. They're dead. If they're not dead on the floor, they have significant brain damage. You can actually choke someone out using a blood choke, which means you cut off the blood flow to the brain. (this means that Emily's nonlethal Shadow Walk pull-the-breath-right-out-of-their-lungs move is complete bullshit, since it's not the lack of airflow that renders people unconscious) A choke-out will knock someone out for a minute TOPS. Any longer and you did not sort that out nonlethally at all. Sleep darts I can accept within the context of the lore. Billie puts a bunch of people to sleep using laudanum in DOTO, so I'm allowing Daud to basically carry around a perfume bottle of what is essentially chloroform. So to recap-knocking or choking someone out is basically stunning them. A sleep dart will put someone out for a good hour, but they're single use. Daud's poppy tincture will make people very sleepy for a few hours, but they'll wake up if he's playing the guitar nearby. Fair?


	8. Eminent Domain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud and Lizzy kill a lot of people. There's haunted paintings, possessed statues, and weird visions. It's basically The Haunted Mansion except Eddie Murphy isn't there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I wouldn't put out another 18k chapter, so I wrote a 15k chapter. Outsider damn it. Lizzy was a lot chattier than I expected, now that she's along for the ride.
> 
> WARNING: The summary is not a joke. This is the bloodiest chapter yet. There's at least one part that gets real graphic. Blood Thirst activates at one point. Just a heads-up if shameless murder isn't your thing.
> 
> Also I named Lizzy's skiff.

**“The Legal District is currently under lockdown. Any unauthorized individuals are to be considered suspicious and confronted with lethal force.”**

Daud curses and hunkers down lower in Melusine. Not that anyone could see him now, but he feels especially naked without the owner of the boat present. Lizzy had spotted a stray guard on their way in. Hanging out near the entrance to the sewers, smoking down a cigarette. They had been able to pull in and hide Melusine a few yards down, but they’d have to pass him to get to the streets. Lizzy wanted to take care of him on her own.

Now she’s out of time. Daud’s feet splash in the six inches of water under the skiff, and he Blinks to the sidewalk.

Rounding the corner, Daud freezes at the sight of Lizzy creeping up on the unsuspecting guard. She grabs the side of his head and shoves her blade into his ribs in one smooth motion, then gently lowers him to the floor without making a sound. His head lolls to the side. Gives one last shudder. He didn’t even have time to scream.

Daud blinks, and the scene disappears in a flash of white. The guard is upright again, standing and watching the river. He flicks the butt of his cigarette into the water.

Lizzy springs upon in an instant. Her cleaver is out, but it stays clean. She wraps her other arm around the man’s neck. He gets out one strangled gasp before he goes limp. Lizzy nearly crumbles under his weight.

Daud Blinks across the water to help her, but she’s already got it under control. She looks up at him as she lays him on the ground. “Give him some of that knock-out shit, will you?”

The guard’s eyes are already starting to flutter, but he relaxes the instant he inhales the fumes from Daud’s bottle. Lizzy lets his head drop to the floor.

“There. He’ll snore for an hour.” Her mask is on, but Daud can hear the smile in her voice.

They walk to the edge of the walkway as Daud tucks the bottle back into his jacket. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill him.”

“Should I have?” Lizzy turns to him. “Was easy enough. Figured we’d leave some fuckers alive so your boy still has a City Watch after all this.”

The image of Lizzy’s blade reddening with the guard’s blood, of it dripping down and staining her hands burns in his mind. Daud shakes his head to rid himself of it. “We’re wasting time,” he grunts.

They sneak up the steps, keeping low to avoid being spotted from the streets. Daud doesn’t know the Legal District well. He never had much reason to visit. The occupants were rich enough to attract him during his thieving days, but they were also well-guarded to the point that it wasn’t worth it to steal from them. Billie never had much reason to travel here. Legal representatives travelled to  _ her _ . He looks around for a notice board, something that would have a map. Above them, a speaker crackles and spouts off something about the ‘weeper’ count for the last month. Daud can only assume that was the term they’ve been using for late-stage plague victims. Somehow it seems disrespectful, dehumanizing. Like they were monsters instead of citizens. 

“Scout up ahead,” he whispers to Lizzy. “I’m going to see if I can dig up a map.”

Lizzy doesn’t respond, only disappears in a cloud of black. Daud nearly smiles. She’s taken to his powers like cats to cream.

The riverfront is deserted, and Daud Blinks in front of a nearby bulletin board. He stares intently at the map posted there, trying to commit it to memory.

After a moment, however, his eyes gravitate to the right side of the board, where notices for wanted criminals are posted. Two in particular, really. Side by side, with charcoal renditions of their iconic masks. Nobody’s ever seen their faces.

The Crow Queen, and her Rat King.

They’ve come to the Empress’s attention before. Notorious around Dunwall, they dealt in blood and secrets. But little could ever be directly attributed to them, and even the Spymaster had problems tracking them down. They left no evidence in their crimes. Everyone would always know it was them, but nobody could concretely prove it. They were...evasive like that.

She was the leader, the so-called Crow Queen, named for the beaked masks her and her witches wore. Queen Jasmin, or the ‘Black Empress’, some called her. As if she was comparable in any way to Billie. Like controlling the criminal underworld of Dunwall was anything like running the Empire. The Crow Queen’s influence was felt far and wide, true. All across the island of Gristol, down to even the southernmost shores of Serkonos. They even had some contacts at work in Tyvia. But it wasn’t the same.

Nobody knew how the Crow Queen got her information, but it was said that there were no secret in Dunwall you could keep from her. The moment she laid her beady, bird’s eye on you, she knew the weight of your heart and the contents of your soul. That was what the common folk said about her, anyway.

Daud, however, didn’t normally believe such nonsense. The Crow Queen was a witch, yes. But he had a hard time believing she could read minds.

The King was her shadow, her second-in-command by pure definition. It didn’t seem right to pin him as her subordinate, though. From all accounts, he was given such a long leash that he practically worked on his own. He was more...hands on than his Queen. His trail was just as untraceable as hers, his actions just as silent. All but invisible. But he left bloodier footprints when he was done.

Daud can’t remember if the Rat King title predated the plague, or if it was given to him after the rats were already synonymous with death. He remembers him being referred to as ‘The Raven’ before, but that had eventually come to describe two separate witches in the group. Their coven. The Black Cardinal. 

Daud knew of a few specific, high-ranking members that had their own appropriately avian titles, but he wouldn’t know how to identify them. No one knew where they were based. Daud imagines them gathering in the rooftops of all the abandoned buildings in Dunwall, of looking up and seeing nothing but black coats and beaked masks perched in the rafters, their beady red eyes bearing down on everyone below.

He reaches out and runs his hand over the Crow Queen’s picture. If only he had known. If only he had known that  _ she  _ would set her eyes on Billie one day. That her Rat King had the power to...to force Daud to stand there, and make him watch like that. He’d have emptied the city coffers to pay the bounty on her head then. Would have hunted her down himself. If he had known she would become Billie’s killer.

_ ‘They did it for Dunwall.’  _ Billie’s whispers are soft like the wind at his back.

Daud’s tongue sticks to the top of his mouth. “Dunwall has gone to the Void without you.”

She says nothing to that. Daud looks down to the bottom of the poster, but he already knew all the information listed there. Both their bounties had tripled in the last eight months, though. Odd. Delilah would know they were the Empress’s true killers, but she had a vested interest in selling the idea that Daud had killed Billie. She should be removing their bounties to keep them from talking. Unless that was her intention, to shut them up for good. Lydia had said the Crow Queen had been inactive lately, though he supposes the Rat King could have always done something to garner the higher bounty.

Peering the the side, Daud spots one more poster. For a reward of fifteen-thousand coin, the same as the Crow Queen and the Rat King, the body of the supposed ‘Dunwall Butcher’. 

Daud leans in to get a closer look. The rendition was unhelpful at best, with no identifying features or anything that could be somewhat distinctive. Just a slight, smudged figure in a coat and boots, like most of Dunwall wore in this age of industrialization. A drawn hood. Their estimated height and build is listed off to the side. The killer is taller than Daud. He scoffs. Figures.

“Hey! Hey you, this area’s supposed to be clear!”

Daud freezes. Footsteps behind him, and quickly gaining. Only sounded like two of them, but still. They would recognize Daud the moment he turned his head.

He has no time to think about it. He turns, and sprints.

The two guards jump back in surprise at both seeing the Protector-turned-traitor there, and seeing him make a mad dash straight towards them. Daud takes the opportunity. He slides, kicks one guard’s feet out from under him. The guard gasps, the breath momentarily knocked out of him as he lies on his back. Daud shoves his sword into his chest to knock it out permanently.

He’s still getting to his feet, and the other guard is staring at him, slack-jawed. But the moment passes, and the guard closes his mouth, pulls his gun from his hip.

It’s not even something he thinks about. Daud just holds up two fingers, points to a spot off to the side.

Lizzy appears in a flash of smoke. She shoots off one bolt on her own wristbow and it catches the guard neatly in the shoulder, sending him over the railing and into the water.

She holds up her blade to her face. “Bitchin.”

Daud nods grimly as she sheathes her sword and strides back over to him. “Dude, how’d you do that? I just felt, like, this  _ pull  _ to you.”

“Don’t know,” he says, gruffly. He stares at the map of the Legal District again. Fuck, he’s wasted precious minutes standing here, thinking. Minutes that brought them closer to General Turnbull’s arrival, when he’ll spirit Thomas away and hide him somewhere Daud will never find. And he still has no fucking clue where he’s going.

Lizzy is still chirping away in the background. “I mean, good. You can call on me whenever your ass needs saving.” She comes up behind him. “There’s a wall of light about a block from here, but I found an easy way over. You find out how to get to Timsh’s place yet?”

“I’m  _ trying. _ ” Daud rubs his eyes, trying not to lose patience with her, but then the solution hits him like a barrel of bricks. He can just take the map with him. Duh.

He snatches the map from the board, folding it up and ignoring the torn edges where the tacks had been. He shoves it into his breast pocket without explanation and turns back to Lizzy. “Okay. Let’s go.” 

“Great. Before we fuck off, I need to tell you something.” She grabs his arm, and Daud resists the impulse to elbow her in the face. “There’s a guy who wants to meet with us.”

“Who the fuck even knows we’re here?” Daud snatches his arm away.

Lizzy shrugs. “I just had a chat with a wild Hatter. Mentioned we had business at Timsh’s, and he said a guy would be wanting to talk to us.”

“We don’t have time to waste, Lizzy.”

“Okay, well, he also told me that the access point is locked up tight.” That makes Daud stop. Lizzy crosses her arms. “Yeah, Watch fucks managed to lock themselves out of the Legal District proper. Real force to be reckoned with, there. They know a way to get us through, though.”

Daud sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. “Fine, fine. Whatever gets us there faster.” He goes to turn away again, but Lizzy Blinks in front of him. He can’t help but swat at her in annoyance. “Do you mind not doing that?”

Lizzy reaches up to grab his chin. “We’re gonna have to cover you up. These guys aren’t going to be so jazzed to see the guy who killed their Empress.” With that, she stalks off. Daud rounds on her.

“I _ didn’t kill her _ .”

“Yeah,  _ I  _ know that,” Lizzy says, digging through a Watch checkpoint. “But these are ‘shoot first, ask questions never’ kind of guys. They’re blaming you for the situation with the Regent, how fucked the plague has us. Doesn’t help that a lot of them had the hots for Her Majesty.”

Daud rubs his nose. He really could have gone without hearing that. “Okay, fine. Give me your mask.”

Lizzy pokes her head back out. “Bitch, you’re the one who didn’t want the mask!”

“You just said I couldn’t show my face!” Daud hisses. “They already know you! I’ll give it right back!”

“Sooo, yeah, here’s the thing.” Lizzy returns with a handkerchief in hand. “So these guys know who I am. But they don’t know  _ who  _ I am.”

Daud raises an eyebrow.

 

* * *

 

Donning a fancy new handkerchief around his mouth and nose, Daud aims his Blink over the wall of light. Lizzy tried to push a scarf on him to wrap around his head, but he declined. It felt too Zhukov-like, and he never thought he’d be using that term to describe clothing styles. It had been awhile since his hair was short like this anyway, and he’s been noticing some greying at the roots. His eyes shouldn’t be too recognizable. It was fine. It would be fine.

Holding his breath, Daud Blinks to the roof over the wall of light. And overshoots.

He falls.

Daud curses to himself as he falls forward, one hand on the ground to steady himself. Fuck, he felt that in his teeth. And now his calf hurts.

A guard turns his head at the noise, and only has an instant to startle back before Daud Blinks to him and slits his throat.

Well, stealth didn’t work. Daud hauls the corpse over his shoulder as Lizzy appears. She stifles most of her chuckle, at least. “Come on. We’re headed to Treaver’s Close. You’ll know it by three white-washed skulls.”

Daud grunts under the weight of the guard. “Like, real skulls?”

“I don’t fucking know, I’m just repeating what I was told.”

They duck down an alley. Daud tenses up when he hears voices, but Lizzy just straightens up and runs towards them.

“You can all die happy now; the Queen has returned.” Lizzy announces. Daud trails in behind her, meekly shoving off the body into a pile of weeds. Lizzy stops short and points behind her. “And I brought another one, too.”

“Very funny.” Daud remembers then that he needs to be disguising his voice. A lot of people knew his raspy-ass tone. Fortunately, the Hatters don’t seem to be paying much attention.

“Nice to finally meet you, Eliza.” One of the Hatters strides forward. They smack their hands together, pull each other in and slap a hand on each other’s shoulders.

There is indeed a mural of three skulls drawn across the brick wall at the back of the alley. A few Hatters sit on the roof above it, dangling their legs over the edge and raising their pistols in greeting. A chair sits in front of the mural, and on it, a man in a mask rises.

“So this is her, then?” he asks, approaching the two. His clothes are far too fancy for their current company.

The Hatter next to Lizzy nods. “Yep, this is old Hat’s daughter. She’ll pull us back from the brink, mark my words.”

“Oh, fuck off. I got better shit to do than babysit you pussies.”

Daud takes the moment to step up, clear his throat. “We’re busy with some of that shit  _ right now _ ,” he says, making his voice so low it hurts.

The masked man waves his hand. “Oh, I heard. Arnold Timsh. Half the city wants him dead. You have the opportunity to make yourself a lot of gold today.” He leans forward then, holds up his hand like he’s telling them a secret. “We can strike up a similar deal right now.”

“I’m not interested in coin.” Daud says plainly. The masked man just laughs.

“Well, that’s good, because I have none of that left! Timsh took it all. No, I’m giving you a new way to ‘take care’ of Timsh.”

“I already have a way of taking care of him,” Daud growls. He pulls out his sword. “And her name is Billie.”

“You named your sword after the Empress?” One of the Hatters says. “Aw, how cute. Yeah, I was in love with her too. Fuck Daud, am I right?”

Daud just shakes his head. “Whatever you’re offering, I’m not interested, and we’re short on time. Let’s go,  _ Eliza. _ ”

“You’ll hear me out if you ever want to make it past the blockade!”

At that, Daud stops in his tracks. He grits his teeth, exchanges glares with Lizzy. Then he turns back around.

The man’s mask has the face of a skull, carved in intricate patterns not unlike the fake skulls used for decoration during the deathday festivals down in Serkonos. It might have once been white, and Daud can tell that the markings are supposed to be colored. But a layer of grime turns it all to shades of gray. Daud can practically see the smug look under it all as the man puffs up.

“Arnold Timsh,” and he’s already gearing up for a monologue. “Had my wife sent to the Flooded District, seized all our assets and our home. Now I am a ruined man. And I want revenge, to do him what he did to me.” He stalks forward, closer to Daud. “I want him homeless, a victim of one of his own eviction documents. I’ve prepared one, complete with the forged signature of the Lady Regent. He’s not married, unfortunately, so I can’t take his one love away like he did mine.” He sniffs, crosses his arms. “A pity.”

“Yeah, because nothing says justice like someone getting murdered because they opened their legs for the wrong person.” Lizzy snatches the paper from the man’s hands.

The masked man just fluffs his collar. “The whole plot and the means to carry it out are at my old apartment, in the buildings to the right of the Timsh estate, though I doubt you can get in from the streets anymore. Timsh and I used to be on...neighborly terms, but with the plague, people are all too eager to shoot their best friend if it means getting a leg up. I had payment ready for the person who originally took the job, so you’re welcome to help yourself to that.”

“Thought you didn’t have a coin to your name,” Lizzy scoffs, scanning over the document.”

“I don’t. I deal in bone now.”

Daud’s head snaps back up. “We’ll give it some thought.” Later. Once Thomas is safe and he can afford to dawdle on this bullshit. “Now tell us how to get over the blockade.”

“Oh, you’ll need to find the key for that.” The man turns and flounces away. Or tries to, as Daud quickly seizes the back of his collar and levels his sword with his nose. “Oh, calamity! I know where it is, don’t worry!” He waves his hands in a manner not unlike flopping fish out of water. Daud releases him, but continues to glare. “It’s just-right past here, through that window up there.” He points to the rooftop above the skull mural, built into the side of another building. “The Friar, the key is somewhere in there. Then you just go up Pudding and you can stroll right through the barricade.”

“What he’s not telling you,” one of the Hatters jumps down from the roof. “Is that we abandoned that hideout for a ‘raisin. Milly and the boys, they’re weeping. Not because they’re sad or nothing, I mean in the plague sense.”

“Fuck.” Lizzy pulls up her mask just enough to spit on the ground. “I guess we’ll just be getting on that. Can’t promise your boys won’t end up as collateral.”

The Hatter just shakes his head. “No, kill ‘em. If ya can.” He looks away, his eyes shiny for just a brief moment before he turns back. “Better than just leavin’ em to suffer, you know what I mean? We just...we couldn’t do it ourselves.”

“Just make it fast,” another pipes up, then slides his toe in the dirt. “Please. Don’t make ‘em hurt any more.”

Lizzy straightens up. “Yeah. I’ll do my best.” She says, unusually somber.

Daud holds up a hand and pretends not to notice how the masked man flinches. “Wait. You said you and Timsh were neighbors before-did you or anyone else ever see a boy in there?”

“A boy?” The man cocks his head. “Like a child?”

“A teenage boy.” Daud clarifies. “Not related to him.”

The masked man appears to think for a moment. “Well, there was that one red-headed girl...but no, no boys. I didn’t think Timsh was into that kind of thing.”

He better not fucking be, or Daud’s going to part him with a few other things before his life. “Can you think of any place he would keep someone against their will?”

The man just shrugs. “The basement, perhaps? That place always gave me a strange vibe.”

“Oh, another thing!” One of the Hatters calls to Lizzy, who’s already scaling the rooftop. “You can’t go that way. We kind of booby-trapped it.”

 

* * *

 

“Fucking Hatters, and their fucking...fuck!” Lizzy rants as they Blink from rooftop to rooftop. The loudspeakers crackle to life, as if mocking her.

**“Any citizens belonging to or offering aid to the criminal organization known as Hatters will be met with lethal force.”**

“Fuck your goddamn order!” Lizzy yells. Daud Blinks behind her and pulls her back from the edge of the roof. 

“Can you calm your tits for a second?” Daud hisses, pulling his handkerchief down. Lizzy just shoots him what he supposes is supposed to be a glare, but the effect is lost through the mask. She does seem to deflate, at least.

“I just...fuck, there are reasons I don’t deal with them.” She adjusts her coat. “Bunch of babies, running around blind without a leader to wipe their asses for them.”

Daud turns away, crouches to take stock of the streets. They’re swarming with Watch, but there’s plenty of low rooftops. He and Lizzy should be able reach the blockade without the Watch even knowing they were there, provided they stay above their heads.

Lizzy plops down next to him. “So. Billie, huh?”

“You can fuck right off.”

“I’m not making fun of you. Fuck, I named my pistol Annabelle.” She takes out her cleaver and examines the edge. “Wonder what I should name this bad boy? Maybe after one of the girls back at base. We’ll see whose pants I get into first.”

“We’re wasting time,” Daud grunts, pushing himself up. “We need to make our way down Lackrow Boulevard. I’ll take the left side, you take the right. Make sure the way is clear. I’ll meet you at the Hatter outpost.”

Lizzy grumbles, but she Blinks away without complaint.

Daud Blinks across rooftops, examining the officers below. They were making their base out of what looked like a bar, and Daud Blinks to a balcony above the entrance. Fortunately, the bar was out of eyesight of the blockade, and there was a giant building between them and where the outpost supposedly was. With any luck, they could stay quiet and avoid having to take on the brunt of the Watch.

Expelling a long breath, Daud turns into the room the balcony is linked to, intent on leaving by the window on the other side.

And he’s immediately greeted by a Watch Officer’s belly.

The guard has just rounded the corner, not even paying attention to where he’s going. He hasn’t even seen Daud yet. But Daud is startled, his sword already in hand, and it’s too simple, too quick to shove in the cavern between his ribs. The guard’s eyes go wide, and he looks down at the sword in his stomach with an expression of absolute confusion before his knees give out.

Daud curses as he catches the man, hauls him up on his shoulder. Stupid, stupid. He should have used his Void Gaze to clear the room before landing here. The guard could have spotted Daud first, attacked or summoned more guards. Daud could have avoided-

No. He wasn’t going down that route. The man’s dead, and there’s no point in wondering if he didn’t have to be. Daud can’t waste time trying to avoid casualties.

He drops the guard’s body in a sideroom, closes the door. Hopefully no one would have reason to come up here until after Daud has left the district. 

Daud goes to exit out the window, but his eyes are drawn to a poster at its left. He glances out the door, listens carefully for footsteps, but he returns to the image of Billie’s face, printed in black and white.

She’s not the only image on the page, he notices. His own face graces the top, accompanied by a bounty of 30,000 coin. It goes on to describe his murder of the Empress. Billie’s picture is only there to paint her as his victim.

She’s wearing that dumb fan collar. Daud remembers how much she hated the thing, how she felt like a turtle ducking into its shell. How much it itched. Her hair was also longer when this was drawn, her curls combed out and hidden in an upwards twist. Daud’s hair is longer too, but it hangs from his face, matted and greasy. His mouth grimacing, and his eyes empty. His skin also appears to be more tanned, though Daud might not have the best reference. His skin is paler than ever now from his months in Coldridge. He looks back to Billie’s picture. It might just be because of the greyscale, but they made her far lighter than she was in life.

There’s the sound of a cracking bottle, and a group of men laugh somewhere downstairs. Daud turns away from the poster. What the hell is he doing? He’s running out of time. He needs to focus on Thomas, who he can actually save. Billie is beyond his help now. No amount of moping will bring her back.

A stack of posters lay on the table, ready for distribution and Daud’s always been a stickler for self-punishment. He folds one up and sticks it in his coat.

Daud brings the Talisman out as he Blinks down the boulevard. He needs to hear her. “Talk to me, Billie.”

_ ‘There was a story once. A sailor, caught forever in a fog. She sails blindly in it throughout all the seas. I am that sailor.’ _

She had always wanted to be a sailor. Maybe she’s dreaming of it. 

Lizzy greets him at the entrance of the hideout, hiding in the rafters above the courtyard. “Think there’s five in there,” she grunts, pointing towards the building. “Way up Pudding is clear, so once we get the key we should be in the clear until we hit the plaza.”

“Good.” Daud takes a swig from his waterskin. “How do you want to do this? Probably best to avoid, you know. Touching them.”

“Doesn’t your Mark protect against that sort of thing?” Lizzy points.

Daud shakes his head. “Maybe. But I’d rather not take the chance. Do you?”

“Good point.” Lizzy hauls herself up. “That fence right there looks like it’ll go down with a few swings. If we break that, the weepers might just haul themselves out. Let the Watch do our dirty work.”

‘We promised their friends we’d make it fast. And we’d just be trading out one enemy for another.” Daud purses his lips. “We’re killing time. Figure something out, Lizzy.”

She fiddles with her wristbow. “Well, weepers will come to investigate noise, so…” She shoots a bolt into the door. “We’ll just get them nice and clustered together...”

There’s groaning from further into the house, and the sound of feet on the floorboards. Lizzy shoots another bolt to get their attention.

The first weeper stumbles out the back door. There’s blood on his shirt, torn at the sleeves and frayed at the bottom. His skin grey and hanging off his bones. Blood staining his cheek. And the smell. Nothing could prepare Daud for the smell. Like rotting flesh and fresh blood, garbage and feces. It’s overpowering. 

Daud pulls the handkerchief back over his face on instinct. Lizzy keeps firing her bolts, herding the rest of the weepers into the alleyway. They’ve all lost their hats. Lizzy was wrong: there’s six of them. There’s one female Hatter in the mix, and her reddish-brown hair is matted to the back of her head. Daud doesn’t know if it’s blood or something else.

“What do you think?” Lizzy whispers. “If our aim’s good, we can get bolts in their skulls before they know what’s happening. Or we can use something with some splash damage.”

“Let’s just get it over with,” Daud says between gritted teeth. “You got a grenade? Might be messy, but it’ll only hurt for a second.”

There’s the sound of Lizzy rifling through her coat. “I got a molotov. Everything in this damn city is coated in oil. Should go up like tinder.”

She readies the cocktail, and Daud watches the group mill around, aimlessly. He knows the plague chews on the part of the brain that handles reason, that these people don’t even understand why they wandered out here. They focused on the noise, the only thing that got through their addled senses. And they’ve likely already forgotten why they came out here in the first place. Now they just shuffle around because they can’t remember how to do anything else. Starving, groaning, bleeding. Suffering.

The girl turns her head up to look at them. Cloudly, discolored eyes, just like ones Daud saw under that man’s mask. Bloody streaks down her cheeks. She’s wearing a purple blouse underneath her suspenders. And Daud is suddenly struck by a vision of Thalia Timsh, her lavish outfit streaked with dirt and blood, her face gaunt and her bones sticking out. Her eyes bloody and weeping.

_ ‘It doesn’t have to be like this. We both know it.’ _

Lizzy throws the cocktail. The courtyard erupts into bright orange flames. Daud feels the heat on his face from twenty feet in the air. Dancing figures scatter in all directions, but they collapse mere feet away. There’s the sound of choking, of crackling flames, and though their voices only continued working for a half-second, their screams still fill their air.

He jumps down before the last of the fire dies out. Lizzy lands beside him. “Well, it wouldn’t be the end I’d prefer, but at least it was fast,” she says.

Daud doesn’t say anything. He just pushes the door open with his foot and continues on his search.

There’s one already dead Hatter in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and it’s next to him that Daud finds the key. It’s not obvious how the Hatter died-flies were starting to swarm the body, but even at this stage Daud can tell that he wasn’t a weeper. No wounds either. Maybe starvation. He pockets the key and turns back to the stairs.

Lizzy is waiting for him at the bottom. “I should double back, let them know their friends are out of their misery.” 

“I’m not stopping you.” Daud grunts. He hoists himself over the fence and continues on his way. Lizzy does the same and runs to keep up with him.

“Keep the door unlocked, will you? I’ll find you at the plaza, and we can make our plan from there.”

Daud nods. “That guy in the mask, he has the plague. Should let them know.”

Lizzy cocks her head like she’s about to retort, but Daud’s head snaps to the side before she can get anything out. 

Without explanation, he’s off. The hum is at his ear, and once he’s heard it he can’t  _ unhear  _ it. Void Gaze shows him the way, where the bone is pulsing, throbbing, singing out for him.

“Aw, fuck, you’re doing that creepy thing with your eyes again!” Lizzy complains, but he barely hears her. The bone is close. It’s down below his feet, down by the water.

Daud makes a break for the end of the road, looking out over the river. He doesn’t stop when he reaches the fence. His feet barely touch the rungs as he climbs up, jumps over. Then he falls.

The water is cold, but Daud pays it no mind. He pulls himself out and shoves his way into the little workshop set up by the dockside.

Lizzy appears while he’s rooting around. “Okay,  _ what  _ the fuck?!” She strides towards him with her arms outstretched. “What are you, suicidal? We’ll get your boy back, don’t worry!”

He ignores her. Daud tears through the shelving at the back, until his hands finally close around it and his head is blessedly silent.

“It’s fine. This is what I was getting.” Daud holds the rune up. Lizzy takes off her mask and stares at it for a long minute, and Daud thinks she might be putting it all together. The magic, the bones, the Mark. How it all worked. How Daud  _ needed  _ these runes. Maybe she would hear their call too. Maybe she would understand.

But Lizzy’s face just dissolves into something dark, and she gives Daud a dirty look before putting her mask back on. “Thomas is waiting for us.”

And with that, she’s gone.

Daud makes his way up Pudding. He can see the blockade, but he can also see the little checkpoint set up, the guards that have wandered over since he last checked the area. He Blinks to a lamppost above them. Two guards near the barricade itself, one inside the checkpoint, bent over a logbook or something. They were well out of the way enough that the other guards shouldn’t notice their deaths, unless their patrols brought them over. 

He Blinks to the top of the checkpoint and carefully pulls the top grate open, silently thankful that the checkpoints were new enough that they didn’t squeak. He hooks his knees over the edge and falls back.

Being upside-down like this brings up memories of Coldridge, of hanging by his ankles while all the blood rushed to his head. He remembers it getting harder to breathe, his eyes hurting, his legs going numb. All to get him to say he killed Billie. But he had stayed silent then, so he can choke it down now. He needs to get to Thomas. And to do that, he needs to get rid of this guy.

The guard hasn’t noticed his presence. Daud lines his wristbow up with the man’s temple and pulls him back by the hair. One flick of the wrist and his bolt enters the man’s skull at a deadly speed. The man flops forward, onto his logbook. Daud returns the half-extended bolt into his wristbow with a  _ click _ .

He Blinks back to the lamppost. The shorter of the two guards turns to the other. “Sir?”

“What is it?”

“I just want to say...congratulations on getting your own squad.”

Leaping into the air, Daud fires a bolt at the taller guard. He lands on the other and seizes the back of his head. Daud slams it to the ground once before he shoves his sword through the man’s neck.

“By the Outsider!” 

Daud curses. The other guard was hit, but it wasn’t deadly. Not immediately, at least. Red blooms out from his chest, his eyes wide as he tries to sit up. Daud had barely missed his heart. He Blinks over to the guard and takes care not to miss it again when he thrusts his sword down.

That was taken care of. Daud leaves the bodies where they fell. Hopefully no one would stumble upon them. He was running out of time. 

Daud hits the rooftops again as soon as he’s past the barricade. He can see a wall of light up ahead, so he’s more than happy to avoid the streets. No guards around, he can’t tell if that’s a good sign or not. It makes life easier for him now, but there might be reasons for the light guard presence over here. And Daud doesn’t want to think about what that might imply.

He sees it as soon as he turns the corner. Arnold Timsh’s massive mansion, dominating the plaza.

Every inch of him screams for him to move. To run, to disregard the guards and burst through those doors. To strike down anyone who gets in his way. And for a moment, it plays out. Dodging bullets, returning fire with his own bolts. Watching as each one finds their mark in an officer’s skull. Putting his sword through the hearts of Timsh’s lawyers. Cutting down maids who didn’t step aside fast enough. Then, and only then, would he find Thomas, and he would kneel before his new Emperor trailing a river of blood as wide as the Wrenhaven behind him.

It’s only the most disciplined part of himself that drags him back and reminds him of his promise to Lizzy.

There’s no blood on his boots. None on his gloves. If there’s any on his coat, he wouldn’t be able to tell. The vision was just that, a vision. But it was real enough that Daud still feels the creak in his knees, his pants getting wet as he knelt for Thomas in blood.

_ ‘There’s an equipment stash on the roof nearby.’  _ Billie sounds quite bored.  _ ‘You’re not the only one with a grudge. Just the first to finish the job.’ _

Works well enough for him. Daud Blinks to the roof and spots the tray. Darts, mines, elixir. A key. Daud pockets everything he has room for, then sets aside the rest for Lizzy. Then he crouches at the edge. And waits.

Thomas is somewhere in that mansion. He’s so, so close. Soon Daud will see him again, be able to touch him and hear his voice. He won’t have to be afraid of Timsh and his men anymore, won’t have to sit and wonder why Daud has ignored him all these months. He would be safe. And Daud will never, ever let anything happen to him ever again.

Daud watches the plaza. There’s a few guards milling about, but judging by their demeanor and posture, they haven’t heard anything about murders from the waterfront. Turnbull hasn’t shown up yet. There was still time. Daud waits and mentally yells at Lizzy to hurry up.

She appears behind the billboard. “Hatter fucks gave us some coin, in case you wanted to know.”

“Keep it,” Daud says without taking his eyes off the mansion. He motions to the tray with his head. “There’s some equipment, if you need to top up.”

“Sweetness.”

There’s the sound of rummaging, and Lizzy plops down next to him. “So. Timsh is in there, huh?”

_ ‘He’s in the bedroom with his maid. Top floor.’  _ Billie’s voice is thick with disgust.  _ ‘Don’t make me describe what’s happening.’ _

“Uh-huh.” Daud doesn’t tear his eyes away.

“So how do you want this to go down, boss?” Lizzy asks. “You want me to take care of Timsh while you look for your boy?”

Daud stands up so abruptly he might have lost his balance and fallen off the roof, if it weren’t for the quick reflexes the Mark provided. “No,” he says. “No. I’m going to do this myself.”

He looks to Lizzy, who’s still just sitting there, one leg dangling over the side. “Can you find me even when I’m not-when I don’t summon you?”

Lizzy shrugs. “Kind of, I guess? I can feel you, and not in the creepy sense. Like I got a Daud compass built into my chest.”

“Never use that phrase ever again.” Daud shakes his head. It was useful to know, at least. He could feel Lizzy’s presence too. Wasn’t perfect, but it meant they could find each other easily. “I’ll go in alone. Just-stay in the general area, okay? I’ll Summon you if I need you, and you come find me if General Turnbull shows up. Alright with you?”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan.” Lizzy draws up one of her knees, drapes her arm over it and continues surveying the plaza.

“That’s not my name.”

“Just...go find Thomas.”

 

* * *

 

The streets were easy enough to avoid. The real hazard came from all of Timsh’s balconies. Guards wandering out to get some fresh air, standing at the third and fourth stories. Heights that Daud should be safe at.

He watches the mansion as he Blinks over the balconies of the apartments that lined the plaza. The masked man’s apartment was around here, but really, did Daud have any intention of sparing Timsh’s life? Delilah could easily reverse getting his arrest or eviction. No, it was better to take care of him for good. Thalia might have been happier with an alternative outcome, sparing her uncle’s life, but he didn’t really like Thalia anyway.

Timsh’s mansion backed one of the district walls, which meant there was no view. There wouldn’t be balconies or windows at the back. And that’s where Daud would slip in.

Passing by one apartment, Daud stops short as the familiar hum of bones reach his ears. His feet don’t know where to go at first. Their song draws him in, so strong, so beautiful and jarring, but Daud steels his shoulders. Not now, not when he’s so close. He  _ can’t _ . He’d come back.

The bones continue to clamor for him, as if begging him to come back, to take them with, and asking why he was leaving them behind.

One of the mansion’s balcony doors opens, and Daud aims and Blinks so quickly he loses his footing. He falls, and the Outsider’s Mark crackles as he desperately tries to find another location to lock onto, to Blink to, but the magic fizzles in his hands and goes dark.

Daud hits the ground.

He can hear his leg bones crunch, his elbow bending in a way it is certainly not supposed to when he uses it to break his fall. There’s a burning sensation as he gasps for breath, and Daud only hopes it’s just the breath that got knocked out of him and not a broken rib poking his lung. He can literally see red at the edge of his vision.

There’s a guard back by the wall, near the automated doors that lift to let through rail cars from district to district, at least when there was power. The guard startles at the noise of Daud’s body meeting the asphalt and whirls around. 

Daud doesn’t think. He Blinks forward and slashes the man from shoulder to hip.

Fuck, he’s hurting now. He can feel his pulse at his eyeballs, and he can’t get air into his lungs. Every breath sends a new wave of red-hot pain through his side. Daud wipes his forehead just in case the red is actual blood, but his hand comes away clean.

Daud pulls the guard off to the side and sits down next to the corpse. He opens a vial of red elixir first. It wouldn’t work miracles, but it would work hand-in-hand with his supernatural healing, help put his muscles back in the right places. At the very least, it would give him the strength to finish this before collapsing. Then he drinks a vial of blue, because while Rose’s charm did allow him to tap into the magical properties of water, it wasn’t enough.

It’s not perfect, but it gets the job done. After a minute, Daud stands up and hoists the body over his shoulder, drops down into the alley behind Timsh’s house.

He stashes the body in a dumpster and slips over to the back entrance. The masked man had suggested Thomas might be held in the basement, so that would be the first place he looked. Daud jiggles the door. Locked, but the key he swiped from the weapons cache fits perfectly. He silently thanks whatever asshole was planning on murdering Timsh before him.

The back door leads into a storeroom, connected to a tiny kitchen. Daud activates his Void Gaze to check for hidden rooms, secrets trapdoors that led down to a sub-basement, but there was none. Just two women going about their business in the kitchen. Daud turns to leave, but the voices drift out from the open doorway.

“And he’s taking the boy, right?”

Daud perks up. He shuffles towards the doorway, standing by the side to keep from being spotted.

Cutlery squeaks on a table. “Yeah. One less mouth to feed, at least.”

“He doesn’t seem to eat much. Have you ever seen him?”

“Honey, nobody’s seen him except the guards. Timsh keeps him locked up tighter than a virgin’s snatch on Fugue.”

Well, that was one saying Daud’s never heard before.

There’s the sound of pots being knocked together. “Who do you think he is?”

“Mmm, Melissa seems to think it’s his bastard son. But she’s probably just repeating what the old bag told her.” She pauses for a moment. “I think he’s a relative of the Regent. Her nephew or something. She’s probably trying to cover her own back, make sure she won’t be betrayed by her own family when she becomes Empress. So she doesn’t end up like the last one.”

“Do you think she will? Become Empress, I mean. Shouldn’t it go to the old Empress’s brother?”

“Have you seen any Emperors being crowned lately? It’s been six months. That poor kid’s dead. Eh, Parliament will probably put up a fight, but who else is going to take the throne?”

Fuck, he doesn’t care about Delilah and her stupid face. The crown wouldn’t even go to her in the event of Thomas’s death: a fact Delilah certainly knows, or she would have just had him killed too and crowned herself. The line would go through pretty much every noble family and all their possible heirs based on their degree of relation to the Lurks through blood or marriage, and the Kaldwin family was something like thirtieth in line. Daud thinks the Carmines were one of the families ‘next’ on the list, but there were also about six others that were technically of equal relation, and there would be fighting if it came to choosing one to rule. The damn Crow Queen was probably higher up in the line of succession than Delilah was.

There’s the sound of running water, which swallows up the next few words, much to Daud’s displeasure. “-but he should be here within the hour.”

“Fine by me. Means I don’t have to send an extra tray up to the top floor twice a day.”

The top floor! There it was. Thomas was being kept somewhere on the top floor. Now all Daud needed to do was get himself up there.

“Anyway,” the same maid says. “I’m going out back for my smoke break. I’ll see you in ten.”

Daud waits for the maid to fully descend the three steps down to the storeroom before springing on her, dragging her to the side while waving his poppy tincture in her face. She crumbles in his arms. He pushes her on top of some wine barrels so the rats won’t get to her and doubles back for the other maid.

She’s standing at the stove with her back turned to Daud, so it’s easy enough to repeat the same process. There’s no place else to really put her besides on top of the other maid, so Daud just apologizes in his head and hopes they awaken with a newfound affection for each other.

Daud stands in the kitchen, mulling over his next move. He could just fight his way up four flights of stairs, true, but that could very well cause Timsh to panic and hold Thomas hostage. No, there had to be a better idea. He could always enter from the outside-but now that he’s in here, Daud notices a dumbwaiter built into the wall.

Recently built, he can tell because the paint around it doesn’t match perfectly. They were fairly new contraptions in the first place. The Tower cooks had begged Billie to sign off on one, eager to play with a new toy. Daud doesn’t remember if it ever got installed.

There was a sign next to the waiter warning people not to ride in it. Which was practically a suggestion to do so. Daud slides in backwards and twists the dial to the fourth floor. The dumbwaiter creaks under his weight, but it ascends. He tucks in his legs to avoid getting his pant legs caught in the machine.

There’s a ding when he reaches the top floor, and Daud winces as he slides out. But nobody comes to investigate, so this area must be clear, at least. Daud looks around with his Void Gaze.

A guard in the hallway, staring at the wall with his hands clasped behind his back. Two people in what looked like an office, talking. A woman with an apron, and a man wearing one of those obnoxious frilled collars. Probably Timsh himself.

The floor is otherwise empty. No, that can’t be right. He looks down, but all he sees is an office with a few guards milling about. Thomas has to be up here somewhere. Maybe his Gaze was just cutting off before he could find him.

Daud moves into the corridor. The guard stationed there paces away from him, and it’s all too easy for Daud to sneak up and shove his sword into the fleshy bit of his shoulder. He stows the guard away in the bathroom and goes back out the the hallway. He tries Void Gaze once more, and while he does find a room he didn’t see before, there’s no Thomas there either. No, the only thing in that room is one figure, oddly still while giving off the yellow aura that all living creatures do. Daud shakes his head and moves on. Not Thomas. It didn’t matter.

The only place he could think of would be beyond Timsh’s office. Timsh himself is staring into his fireplace, with his maid several feet behind him. Daud opens the door and Blinks to a bookshelf the moment he has a straight shot at it.

Timsh turns his head and the maid startles back. “Sir, I think your house is haunted!”

Daud rolls his eyes. The bookshelf itself is very low, low enough that the two could see him if they were looking anywhere near it. He Blinks to the chandelier instead.

“That’s nonsense, Melissa,” Timsh croons, his voice like grating sandpaper.

Melissa just shakes her head. “Sir, with the paintings and the woman’s voice from your studio, and the footsteps in the attic?”

The attic! Daud activates Void Gaze and turns it upwards. There, not five feet from his head, a person sits crossed-legged on the floor. Thomas!

“And now the doors?” Melissa continues. “There’s something going on here. You should call in the Overseers.”

“No, no, there’s no need to that.” Timsh takes a drink of something on his mantle and makes a face. “In fact you should stay with me tonight. I’ll show you there’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

Now how in the world to get up there? Daud can’t see a staircase or ladder with Void Gaze, so it must be on the other side of the house. Fuck, he’d have to wait for these two to finish yapping before he could leave. And something would almost certainly be locked, wouldn’t it? It always was. He’d need a key. Probably one of ones on Timsh’s belt.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. My husband will be waiting for me.”

“Oh?” Timsh walks towards his desk. It’s then Daud notices that enormous, tacky painting of Delilah that took up half his wall. “I forgot to mention, the carriages aren’t running tonight…”

He could just kill Timsh now. But one of his guards might come up to search for him. That’s why he wanted to wait until after Thomas was safe.

Well, that and he wanted to see first-hand how much Timsh had hurt him. So he’d know how slow to make it. Savor it.

“But I live out past the outer walls!” Melissa steps in Timsh’s direction. “That’s why I needed the carriage to take me home!”

“Oh, I knoooow, dear. That’s why I’m worried. Plague’s been moving out that way, heard of weepers on Market Street. Not a place for young women like yourself.”

Snake. Filthy, slimy little snake.

“I’ve changed my mind, sir.” The maid is stiff, her face emotionless. “I’d be glad to stay with you tonight.”

“Good, good.” Timsh croaks. He stares up into the chandelier lights, and for one heart-stopping second, Daud thinks he sees him. But Timsh just smiles, his beady little eyes wrinkling with glee. “I think I’ll start the evening with a bath. But I have other matters to attend to in the meantime. You’re off-duty, for now.”

_ ‘People like him praise the law when it suits them. We should teach them what law truly is.’ _

“I think I need a drink.”

Timsh turns around and strolls away. As he’s opening the large double doors to the hallway, Daud fires off a single sleep dart into Melissa’s shoulder. She gasps and stumbles, but Timsh doesn’t even hear. Daud Blinks to the door, reaches out and snatches the keyring from Timsh’s belt, withdrawing his hand right as the door swings closed. He Blinks again to catch Melissa before she hits the floor.

He could put her in Timsh’s bed, but-no, he’s not going to do that. Even though she’ll wake up with all her clothes on, she’ll still probably be traumatized. Daud drags her into Timsh’s desk chair and lays her head on his desk. Less comfortable, but it’ll work.

It’s in the little hallway where he first entered that he spots it. Registers as something weird built into the ceiling in Void Gaze, and when he returns to normal view he can see the outline in the ceiling tiles, the chain connected to an inactive light. Daud pulls, and a hidden staircase comes down with it.

Huh. The steps were flimsy, unbearably short in width. There’s a trapdoor at the top that only opens downwards, so Thomas wouldn’t have been able to push the staircase down from his side and escape. Smart. Bastards.

He only prays that nobody comes back up here for a while, because he has no idea how to put these stairs back up.

There’s a single locked door up here. Daud kneels down and peers into the keyhole. His view is obstructed by upturned furniture, but he can see a pair of legs extending from behind the bedframe. Daud flips through the keys until the lock clicks, the knob turns and the door opens.

“I told you, I’m not going to Brigmore! You’ll have to kill me too!”

Daud stops. It’s him. He’s here.

“Thomas,” Daud says, and his voice wavers as he steps into the room. “Thomas.”

There’s a stir. The legs retract, and a mop of blond hair appears above the bedframe.

“Daud?”

And then Thomas scrambles out from his hiding spot. Practically vaults over the sign that made up the other half of his barrier, his eyes wide and his hair sticking up in all directions. “Daud, it’s you!”

“Oh,  _ Thomas. _ ”

Daud overtakes him. He crumbles the second Thomas is in reach, wrapping his arms around him and sinking to his knees. Thomas presses his face into Daud’s shoulder and Daud squeezes, his hands digging into Thomas’s shirt. He presses his nose to the back of Thomas’s neck and just  _ inhales _ . He’s alive. He’s here.

Thomas is alive. And for a moment, Daud can forget that Billie is dead. That the city is withering from plague, that Delilah exists. For a moment, he forgets and basks in the joy of finding Thomas alive. For a moment, everything is perfect.

 

* * *

 

“How did, they told me, I-your heart! They said she took your heart out of your chest and ate it, and...” Thomas pulls away just enough to see Daud’s face. “you were dead, like, like...Daud, are you  _ crying _ ?”

Daud shakes his head. “No,” he says, and he pulls Thomas back in for another hug so he doesn’t see Daud wiping his eyes. “I’m here. I’m here.”

Thomas squeezes him back, and Daud presses his lips into his hair, smoothes it out with his hand. Fuck, he’s dirty. Had they let him bathe?

“But you’re not…” Thomas exhales as he draws back. “You’re  _ not  _ dead, and that means we can escape!” He smiles, jittering in place, just as he’s always done when he’s excited. “We can go back home!”

His forearm is still wrapped, a thick splint tied to the underside. It’s been six months since Thomas was stabbed. He should have healed...more, by now. 

Daud has to shake his head. “No, we can’t go back to the Tower yet.” Thomas looks down for a moment, crestfallen, and Daud touches his cheek to turn his attention back. “Listen, I have some allies with...there’s a safe place for you. I’m getting you out of here.”

“You’re coming with, right?” Thomas asks, and the question catches Daud off-guard.

“Of course.” Daud wipes his nose and pushes himself up. “Is there anything you need? Do you have shoes?” Fuck, that was a stupid question. Of course they didn’t give him shoes. “Never mind that. Just…”

“Just a second.” Thomas gets to his feet and retreats behind the upturned bed. He seems to have fashioned a makeshift barrier made from repurposed furniture, chairs flipped upside down and paintings and signs leaned up against them. Daud peers over the bedframe that hid Thomas’s sleeping area from view. His mattress was on the floor, surrounded by books of all shapes and sizes. Thomas has shorn the case from his pillow and is shoving papers in, notes with scrawled handwriting. Daud catches something shiny as Thomas shoves it into his pillowcase.

“Do you have anything warm?” Daud asks. All Thomas is wearing is a wrinkled, long-sleeved shirt and stretched pants that looked like something Daud would work out in. He’s wearing socks, but those would be wet and useless the second they stepped outside, and his left shirt-sleeve is permanently shoved up to accommodate his splint.

And, fuck, it was freezing up here. No fireplace or stove. Thomas’s mattress was pushed up against the chimney, which would have to be the only source of heat in the attic. How could they justify making the Emperor of the Isles live in this?

There are no windows up here either. Thomas had been taken away at the beginning of summer. The heat would have been stifling then.

Thomas ties his pillow-sack to his belt and, grinning, draps a knitted afghan over his shoulders and ties it together in the front. “Good enough, right? It’s practically a coat.”

It would work. They’d be back at the mill before nightfall-Thomas wouldn’t be in danger of freezing, at least. Daud just didn’t want him to be uncomfortable.

“Good enough.” Daud motions for Thomas to follow. “Come on. We’ll find Lizzy.”

“Who?”

“Friend of mine-you’ll like her.”

They make their way down the rickety stairs-Daud helps Thomas descend, though Thomas protests it. Then there’s the question of how he’s going to get Thomas out of here.

He doesn’t want Thomas to be there when he kills Timsh. He doesn’t want to have to worry about guarding him, and he especially doesn’t want Thomas to see it. He’d prefer if Thomas saw as little blood as possible today, really. He didn’t really have a problem with Thomas knowing Daud had killed for him-he would have to find out, eventually. But Daud would like to keep specifics out of it. 

There was simply Blinking him down, but that wouldn’t do for one reason. 

Daud didn’t want Thomas to know about the Mark.

He had talked about it with Lizzy, after making her promise to keep the Mark and the Bond a secret. The repercussions involved. He was branding her a heretic just by her association with him, never mind using black magic herself. And that wasn’t something he was willing to bog Thomas down with. He didn’t need to worry about Daud. He didn’t need to add the Abbey finding out about Daud’s branding to his list of concerns. He didn’t need to know about the Outsider. 

No, Thomas would ascend and his rule would be clean. Unassociated with witchcraft and untainted by heresy. Even if Daud was found out, he would ensure Thomas would stay innocent by association. The less Thomas knew, the better.

“Daud?”

Thomas blinks his big blue eyes. Daud’s thoughts wander to the way he chose to enter.

“We’re going to do something a little weird here, Thomas.”

Daud goes back over to the dumbwaiter and opens the compartment. He curses when he sees that the tray is gone.

“It goes back down to the bottom floor when you’re not using it,” Thomas explains. Daud curses and slams it close.

He wanders out into the hallway, rubbing his face. Thomas trails behind him. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” Daud sighs. “Do you know of any other secret staircases or shit?”

Thomas shrugs. “I haven’t been below this floor. Well, I suppose I have, but I was unconscious.” He turns his eyes to the side room, where the strange still figure Daud saw earlier sat. “ _ Don’t  _ go into that room.”

“Why not?”

“Lady Kaldwin.” And Thomas looks pale, ill at just the sound of her name. “I can’t explain it-it’s a statue, but it’s her. She can take over it. Talk to you.”

Daud has never heard about that before. He frowns and turns on Void Gaze, examining the top floor and the floor underneath, taking care not to let Thomas see.

“Even Arnold stopped going in there-Daud?”

Daud blinks. “Okay, I have a plan.” He turns around, straightens his shoulders. “Go wait by the dumbwaiter. I’ll send it up again, and you get on and ride it to the bottom. If anyone comes up,  _ hide _ .”

Thomas nods, and before Daud can pull away, Thomas throws his arms around him.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he says, his face buried in Daud’s coat.

Daud gives himself ten seconds to pat Thomas’s shoulder. To return the embrace. Then he pushes Thomas away. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

Timsh is down on the third floor, in his office, and Daud knows that taking the stairs down will have him pass right in front of him. The whole mansion seems to have been built by a goddamn fitness instructor, all the staircases on opposite sides of the house. You had to literally do laps around the house to get up to the top floor. So going down like a normal person wouldn’t work. Daud opens the side balcony and swings his body over the edge.

He raises his hand to Blink, and for a moment, the world seems to stop. He’s frozen, midfall, as he concentrates on where to land. Daud Blinks to the balcony below, and the world returns to normal. Odd.

But it gets him to the other side of the mansion, and the stairs to the second floor are right there.

There’s a sort of indoor balcony thing that overlooks the main entryway, where a single guard stands. Daud creeps up behind him and grabs his shoulder. Turn him around, put a sword in his heart, and catch him before he hits the floor. Daud stashes him under the staircase and takes his previous spot.

Two of Timsh’s lawyers are in the entryway, bitching about how long the maids were taking bringing them wine. Daud thinks it might have something to do with them both being unconscious currently, but he doesn’t say that.

He glances over the rest of the lobby. The main staircase is backed by a massive, truly ugly painting of Timsh, that could have only be done by Delilah herself. Daud is no art snob himself, and he liked the few alternative pieces Billie had commissioned that weren’t really in the typical upper-crust Dunwall style. But this was  _ too much _ .

A guard rounds the corner across the lobby, and Daud Blinks down to the one door on the main floor that doesn’t have a plaque attached to it before the guard can put together what he’s seeing. Fortunately, the door does lead th the basement.

Daud taps the command into the dumbwaiter and waits impatiently as it moves. He worries the dumbwaiter won’t be able to hold Thomas’s weight-though it handled Daud’s just fine, and even in this state, Daud definitely weighed more than him. His fears are unfounded though, as the dumbwaiter descends and Thomas pops out none the worse for wear.

“Okay, that was terrifying,” he says. Daud reaches out to steady him as he steps down. “I’m never doing that again.”

“Probably for the best,” Daud says. Then he grabs Thomas’s hand and they’re off.

Daud drags him through backdoor, veering left this time. They dart up the stairs and over the street, keeping low to avoid attracting the guards attention. Or at least Daud stays low. He tries to pull Thomas along fast enough that it doesn’t matter.

Thomas looks around when they get to a good hiding spot, nestled in between a boarded-up building and a staircase. “Are the rail cars running again?”

“No. Lizzy has a boat. We-I have to go take care of Timsh now.” Daud says quickly. “Hide here.”

“You’re leaving?!”

Daud rushes to shush him. “Watch the noise! I’ll be right back. Give me fifteen minutes.”

Thomas nods, but he doesn’t look convinced. He has bruises in the shape of fingers on both his wrists. Even the one still in a splint.

“Anything you want to impart to Barrister Timsh before he goes to the Void?”

That gets his attention, but he doesn’t look happy about it. Something dark flashes across Thomas’s face. “Make him afraid.”

“Of course.” Daud runs a hand through Thomas’s hair. “I’ll be right back.”

 

* * *

 

Daud doesn’t want Thomas to see him Blink, so he runs to the other side of the mansion. He Blinks up to the balcony where he heard the bone chimes, and ducks when he hears a door open. A guard in protector-blue strolls out onto the fourth story balcony attached to Timsh’s dining room, apparently unaware of the corpse in the bathroom not twenty feet away.

Before he really thinks about it, Daud aims two fingers next to the dining table and the guard is almost immediately hit with a bolt to the head, his body tumbling over the side and silently falling to the ground. Behind him, Lizzy waves.

Daud waves back and turns into the apartment. The stench of death is thick in here. Daud bats the flies away as he passes the bodies. Lizzy follows in behind him.

“Dude, how cool was that?!” she exclaims. Then she seems to notice their whereabouts. “Oh. Well, fuck.”

“Yeah. Plague swept through here.” Daud says emotionlessly. 

_ ‘Dunwall is being eaten alive. Does anyone believe it will be habitable again?’  _ Billie asks. Then,  _ ‘What are you prepared to do to save us?’ _

He would have done anything to save her. And she would have saved many others in turn. But that’s not what happened. He can do nothing now but hold Delilah responsible for it all.

“Something fucked happened here,” Lizzy yells from the other room. “Some witch wrote little rhymes about these bags of bones. I don’t think I want to know.” She rounds the corner into Daud’s line of sight. “You find Thomas?”

“I did.” Daud grits his teeth, pushes on the bookcase. “He’s hiding right now.”

“That’s good. Uh, can I ask what you’re doing there, big boy?”

The bookcase crashes to the floor. Daud steps through and lets his eyes be bathed in purple light.

“Holy fuck.” Lizzy ducks through the opening. “I usually stay away from these shrines, but you-you can actually hear Him, can’t you?”

Daud doesn’t answer. He walks closer, trying to avoid the urge to grab the runes. He knows he’s going to have to speak to Him. But he doesn’t want to.

Lizzy Blinks to his side. “I can’t help but wonder,” she says, facing the shrine. “What does He smell like?”

That makes Daud turn to her. “What?”

She shrugs. “I mean, the Void is kinda like the sea, right? So, does He smell like the ocean? All rainwater and brine?”

Daud just stares, then shakes his head. “Lizzy. That’s weird.”

Billie pipes up.  _ ‘The Outsider is of the Void. He smells of the cold and moon dust, and blood on the wind.’ _

“How the fuck do you know that, you don’t even have a nose,” is what Daud wants to say, but instead he grits his teeth and hisses “No one asked you.” Then he turns back to Lizzy. “You can’t ask me dumb shit like that.”

Lizzy just shrugs. “Can’t blame me for being curious.” She motions to the shrine. “Well, go have a chat with your black-eyed boyfriend. I’ll just be watching.”

Daud gives her the finger, then turns back to the shrine. No point in putting it off now. He takes a step forward and snatches the runes from the table.

Immediately, the wood starts to hiss. The molding wallpaper disappears in chunks, and the floorboards beneath his feet pitch and waver. And the Outsider materializes in front of him.

“Daud,” He says, smiling without moving His lips, as He does. “You did it. Bravo. You saved your son and with him, your daughter’s Empire. Are you ready to celebrate? No?”

Daud only glares. If the Outsider cares about his lack of response, He doesn’t show it.

The Outsider teleports besides Daud, far too close for comfort. “Nobody ever saw you for the threat you were, did they? The Actor never thought you capable of holding a grudge so hard, of biding your time and striking out when  he was most vulnerable. Delilah never anticipated you being a problem. You were a piece on the chessboard, something to be manipulated and eliminated when she had no more use of you. Even now, as she sleeps in Billie’s bed and wears her jewelry while imitating an accent to mock her, you don’t even register as a concern. No one’s watching you, Daud.”

He leans back, smiling in that way. “Except me, of course. I see everything. And right now, I see a man walking a tightrope over a sea of blood. The Empress is gone, and the water’s rising.”

Where the fuck is Lizzy? Daud looks around, but he can’t see her. Maybe some weird Void bullshit. Better be. The Outsider reappears by the window, staring into the deep purple that emitted from the panes. “I have to wonder, what will history saying about young Thomas? Will they tell of how a mountain formed from the corpses of degenerates rose from the sea, and how an assassin named Daud carried the brother of a murdered Empress up and sat him on the throne at its peak? Will they say that a boy king took up his sister’s crown and, through cleverness and patience, saved Dunwall and pulled the Empire back from the brink it’s been so precariously perched on for decades? Or will it simply be said that little Thomas the First came to power in a time of violence and corruption, and that he did his best in a world that is not kind to Child Emperors, or Empresses?”

He turns to Daud then, His hands behind His back and a blank expression on His face. “I’d decide quickly, if I were you. You’re running out of rope.”

Lizzy is leaning over him. “You okay? You were in a daze.”

He pushes her away. “How long was I like that?”

“Only half a minute, if that.”

_ ‘I hope it was enlightening,’  _ Billie says.

 

* * *

 

Lizzy crosses her arms as she watches Daud paw through Timsh’s desk. “And you said he’s in his downstairs office?”

“The third-floor one.”

“Fuck, how many offices does he  _ have _ ?”

Daud shrugs. “Three, I guess.” He closes the last drawer. “The will’s not in here. We’ll have to check the others.”

“Fine with me, I’ve already nicked everything valuable from here.” Lizzy turns to the portrait of Delilah. “And that painting is fucking creepy.”

_ ‘The artwork’s hopeless,’  _ Billie sniffs. A far cry from what she used to say about Delilah’s work, but he shouldn’t say it.

Daud frowns and steps forward. With two swipes of his blade, Delilah’s arms and head are severed from their body as he carves as X into her figure.

“You want to know something really creepy?” Daud turns back to the desk and shoves an audiograph card into his pocket. “There’s apparently a statue of Delilah here that she can possess. That’s what Thomas said.”

Lizzy’s head snaps towards him. “Wait. So she’s actually a witch?”

“Apparently.” There had been rumors for years. Nobody could prove anything, and Billie hadn’t cared, but recent events all but proved it. Daud’s not surprised. It all fit.

She shakes her head. “That’s crazy…” Then she perks up. “I kind of want to talk to her.”

Daud narrows his eyes. “Even I can tell that’s a bad idea.”

“Oh, come on. Aren’t you curious what she’ll say?”

Daud doesn’t say anything, and Lizzy pulls on his arms. “You stand out in the hallway and listen, and I’ll keep my mask on. She won’t know shit. We’ll be fucking with her so hard!”

“Thomas is waiting for us,” Daud spits. 

“Thomas will be fine for two more minutes.”

Lizzy sprints into the hallway before Daud can protest, her feet slapping against the floorboards. He follows her just in time to see the door swing shut behind her.

Daud kneels down and peeks through the keyhole. There’s the statue. Delilah, hewn in white marble and covered in colorless flowers. Lizzy strides in front of her and makes a show of standing there with her hip out and arms folded.

“I know you’re there, bitch.”

Delilah comes to life. Daud knows it’ll happen, but he still has to bite back a startled gasp.

“And here you are.” Her voice is just as sickly sweet as the last day he saw her. It makes his blood boil. “And just who are you, I wonder? Have you come to admire? Or to merely sate your curiosity? I understand that. I’m strange.”

“There’s a lot of words I’d use to describe you, and ‘strange’ doesn’t begin to cover it.” 

“Oh, you brat.” A cloud of white dust rises from wherever Delilah moves, but she never seems to crack. She extends one smooth, white finger at Lizzy. “Are you working for Daud? Has he drawn you in with lies of his love for the Empress? Have you fallen for his sob story? Don’t believe anything he says.”

He hates her. He wants to run in, confront her and scream down her throat. Throw a grenade and destroy the statue. It’s the logical part of his brain that keeps him on the other side of the door, hidden, where Delilah won’t know he’s recovered and ready for her.

“Daud is dead,” Lizzy says flatly.

“Ah, good. I’ve heard snakes often go off to die on their own.” Her arm rises almost mechanically, the motion separate from the rest of her body. “My Empress will find peace in this, knowing her murderer no longer walks the world.”

Daud grits his teeth. He thinks of Billie, trapped in her Talisman. Could it be because Delilah was still alive? Would killing Delilah put her at rest?

“I’m not stupid, Fuckwin.” Lizzy points her finger. “It took more than one person to organize the Empress’s death. Daud didn’t act alone.”

“He didn’t? Oh, little cuckoo. You have  _ no  _ idea what the social politics of Dunwall Tower were like. The Empress was my love. My  _ muse _ . She told me of the things he said to her, the things he  _ did  _ to her. His jealousy drove him to kill her. Nothing else. It was simply that if Daud couldn’t have her, no one could.”

Daud’s feet are frozen to the floor, his mouth dry. The lies had come out too fast. Too easily. Not just Delilah’s, but Lizzy’s too.

“I don’t believe you.” Lizzy holds up her hands. “But it doesn’t matter. I could care less about Empresses.” She draws her blade, pointing it at the statue. “I’m going to make you pay for what you’ve done to Dunwall. You have a  _ lot  _ to answer for.”

“Do I?” Delilah cocks her head. “If you were someone else, I’d have my sisters descend on you the moment you stepped outside this mansion, but I like your spunk, little whaler. So I’m going to let you off with a warning.” She sweeps her stone hand through the air. “Stay  _ away  _ from me. There are great changes coming, and I expect you not to interfere.”

“I’ve never been good at doing what’s expected of me.”

“You’d be wise to do so this time. I have influences in places you won’t expect.” She turns to the side, resuming her original pose. “But as for Arnold Timsh? Do what you must. I won’t hold a grudge. I’m  _ done  _ with him.”

“Good thing I wasn’t asking for your approval,” Lizzy bites back, but the statue is just that again. A statue.

Lizzy slams through the door, yanking off her mask as it swings closed behind her. “Fuck, she’s such a goddamn bitch,” she huffs. She shakes out her mask, turning back to Daud when he doesn’t say anything back. “Daud?”

He just stares at her, wide-eyed, the understanding flowing through him.

Lizzy approaches him. “Hey, are you mad because I didn’t defend you? I just thought-she doesn’t have to know you’re alive, so if-”

“You think I killed her.” And Daud’s voice is quiet, emotionless.

Lizzy doesn’t meet his eye. And that confirms it more than anything she ever could have said.  “You loved her. I know you wouldn’t-”

“You think  _ I killed her _ .”

Daud grabs her wrist and pulls her in. He doesn’t want to hurt her so much as tear away her layers, remove the part of Lizzy that so clearly believed him to be a monster. Believed he would ever lay a hand on Billie. Leave him with the Lizzy he thought he knew.

Lizzy pulls her hand back. “We thought the Regent contracted you for the hit, okay?” Her voice is barely under a yell, but she reigns it in. “And then double-crossed you to cover her tracks. At least me and Edgar did, I can’t say for the others-you were literally standing over her corpse with a bloody blade, you have to know how that looked!”

“I wasn’t! And you know why?” He gets up in her face. “Because she wasn’t dead yet! Because they tore her from my goddamn arms and drowned her because she didn’t die quick enough for them!”

“Okay, okay.” Lizzy pushes him back. “I know that  _ now.  _ And I changed my mind after I met you. I know you weren’t the one to kill her now, but…” She pushes back her hair. “Fuck, Daud. It’s not personal. We didn’t know what to believe.”

Daud inhales deeply, trying to get his breathing under control. “If you thought I killed the last Empress,” he starts. “Why would you break me out to save the new Emperor?”

Lizzy shrugs. “We figured your relationship with the Empress was...complicated. But you would want your son on the throne, so obviously-”

“Thomas isn’t my son,” Daud says curtly.

“Daud. Seriously?”

Daud just huffs and turns around. Lizzy runs behind him, scrambling to put on her mask.

“Are we killing Timsh now?”

“ _ I’m  _ killing Timsh. You’ll stay out of my fucking way if you know what’s good for you.”

And Daud darts off, leaving Lizzy in the dust.

_ ‘Are you killing his Lordship?’   _ Billie’s voice is harsh, angry, dripping with poison and glass on the wind.  _ ‘Take me with you. I’d like to  _ **_watch_ ** _.’ _

For her? Anything.

There’s blood in the air, red in his vision. And Daud is sure that if Lizzy pops up in his face again, he won’t be able to stop himself from killing her.

Five guards in Timsh’s office, and Timsh itself. Daud doesn’t bother planning it out. He rounds the corner and shoves his blade through the back of the first blue coat he sees, extracting his sword and shoving the body forward with his boot on its back.

Men gasp. One guard readies his gun. He takes aim, and Daud Pulls another guard to him and lets him take the bullet to his chest. He dodges another, sending a bolt into the foot of the guard who shot it.

Daud steps towards him. He takes one swing with his sword, beheading the man where he stands. Before he even swings the sword back, he shoots off one bolt into the brain of the guard closest to Timsh, Blinks to the guard that fired the first shot and gets him with the backswing.

It’s then he rounds on Timsh. The terror is written clear across his face, his back pressed up against the wall, clawing at the wallpaper.

“Daud?!” Timsh shakes his head, scrambling for his gun. “Here? You’re supposed to be dead! She said-”

He’s still on his hands and knees, trying desperately to cock the gun from the floor. Daud kicks it out of his hands. And Arnold Timsh slithers to his feet like the snake he is, backing away and screaming for help that will never come in time.

Daud seizes him by his stupid collar, turning them around so Timsh’s back is to his desk. He thrashes around until Daud gets his blade under his chin.

Timsh shakes his head, his eyes wide and pleading, and he mouths something Daud can’t discern. 

Daud swipes his blade and silences it forever.

He comes to after a moment. The Barrister is pale and dead, lying on his back across his desk. Blood streaked across the papers. His head overshoots the back of the desk, so his neck lolls back and his eyes gaze emptily towards the glass balcony.

Lizzy is already going through the drawers.

“You back with us?” she asks, not turning around. “The will isn’t here either, but at least Timsh is dead. Hope you’re satisfied.”

_ ‘It’s always satisfying. Killing a rich bastard like Timsh. Isn’t it?’ _

There’s a noise outside. Lizzy runs over to investigate. “Fuck,” she says. “Turn-bitch is here.”

Daud finds his feet enough to make his way over there, listening as Lizzy cracks the door open.

“I thought Timsh would at least be waiting for me!”

“I’m sure he’ll be down soon, sir. There’s been a bit of a hiccup in the plans, due to some Hatter-”

“I don’t care about the goddamn Hatters! Where’s your commanding officer?! Do you have any idea how important our task is today?!”

“Well, the will is naturally in the last fucking office we check.” Lizzy turns to him. “You wanna nab it real quick and get out? This is gonna go to shit real fast when the army starts finding your bodies.”

Daud turns away, facing the bloodied office. “In a minute.”

He approaches the desk where Timsh is laying, his dead eyes staring at everyone who passes by. Thomas’s face flashes through his mind. His fear. His request to make Timsh feel the same way.

Daud digs two fingers into Arnold Timsh’s bloody slit, feeling the still-warm muscle squish under his fingertips. He runs out a few times, but bodies have so much blood, and it paints on wallpaper so well. It only takes a minute, and it will be the first thing they see when they step into the room.

 

_**THE** _

_**CROWN KILLER** _

_**IS** _

_**WATCHING.** _

 

Delilah would know fear. She would live her last days bathed in it.

Lizzy stares, and Daud doesn’t know if it’s in awe or shock until she shakes his head. “You’re real fucked up, aren’t you Daud? Good thing I am too.”

 

* * *

 

They split up the bottom offices, Lizzy taking the left as they came down the stairs, Daud with the right. One of Timsh’s lawyers is standing in there, smoking, and Daud slaps his hand over his mouth and shoves his sword through his chin.

He finds the will in a chest, along with a few other pricey items he shoves into his coat. Lizzy is still rifling through her room when he pokes his head in. Another lawyer lies on the floor, red blooming from his chest.

“I found it.” Daud holds the paper up. “Never trust anyone with handwriting this neat.”

“By that logic, doctors are the most trustworthy people of all.” Lizzy wipes her gloves on her pants as she stands up. “Well, I found a pack of tarot cards, so it wasn’t a complete waste.”

“Why the fuck do we need tarot cards?”

“Because we need to have something to do when we get wasted, so we don’t look like a bunch of drunks.”

Daud goes to lead her down to the basement, but Lizzy stops short. “Wait.”

“What?!” Daud is past trying to mask his impatience. 

Lizzy points. “I’m going to burn that stupid fucking painting.”

“Seriously?!”

“I haven’t blown anything up all day! Let me have this, Daud,” she pleads. “Look, it’ll distract the army. Go wait with Thomas while I set this up.”

“You know what, fine.” Daud turns away with a wave of his arm. “Don’t blow your legs off. I’m not coming back for you.”

He steals out the back door and beelines for Thomas, who’s still crouched in the bushes, probably freezing his ass off.

“That was definitely more than fifteen minutes,” he says, and Daud playfully bats up over the head.

“Quiet, you.”

“Where’s Lizzy?”

Daud leans out to peer down the street. “She’s coming. We’re waiting for her signal.”

They’re not waiting long. There’s a pop and a bang, followed by smoke wafting from Timsh’s front door. The guards all converge on it. Lizzy jumps down next to them. “K, let’s go.”

“What did you do?!” Thomas yells. Daud grabs his hand.

“Explain later. Run.”

They run through the alleyway beneath the homes and the square. One guard is half on the stairs, and he takes the half step into their path, his mouth open to yell for back-up.

Daud strikes him down without a halt in his step. Thomas clutches his coat, but doesn’t pause.

“The dock’s blocked off,” Lizzy barks. “We’re going to have to backtrack down Pudding.”

“Seriously?!”

“Are we gonna argue, or are we gonna go?”

Daud pulls Thomas out of the alley and they dash across the street, under a bridge and past the Watch checkpoint. There’s a yell, and Daud looks over too late to see a Watch officer rush out of the checkpoint, aiming his gun.

“Oh, FUCK no!”

Lizzy is on him in a second. She swipes her cleaver across his face, but it doesn’t incapacitate him. He gets the shot off. Lizzy stumbles, pressing an arm to her side. Then she rises up again and separates the officer’s head from his shoulders with one fell sweep.

Daud turns to run towards her, but Thomas is already pulling him that way. “Lizzy! Are you okay?” He breaks free from Daud’s hold to sprint the last few steps.

Lizzy shoves him away. “I’m fine, squirt. These coats are armored like crazy.”

“Can you walk? Daud asks. Lizzy smacks his hand away.

“You don’t need to carry me,  _ dad _ . I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Daud looks down the street. The wall of light is still up, fuck. And they can’t use Blink with Thomas here.

“Stay here,” he commands, and darts away before they can argue.

There’s no way to climb straight to the balcony where the whale oil canister is being kept, so Daud scales a stack of crates to the building across the street from it. There he backs up a few feet, springs to the edge and jumps off. He can hear Thomas stifle his shocked panic.

But his hands catch on the railing, and he pulls himself up. Daud pulls out the tank and hurries them through.

The bodies of the guards Daud killed at the barricade are squirming. Or, more accurately, the rats squirm as they feast on the flesh. Thomas gasps, and Lizzy pushes him along. “Don’t look, kid. Just don’t.”

**"Be advised. A dangerous individual is currently at large in the Legal District and or Waterfront areas. If seen, inform an officer of the Watch immediately."**

Fuck. They really need to get out.

Whether Lizzy is truly okay or not, she’s trailing behind. Daud doesn’t doubt her armor kept the bullet from ever touching her, but still. There was enough brunt force behind a gunshot to fuck someone up. She’d have to be looked at once they got back to base.

Her skiff was still blocks away, beyond another wall of light that they never bothered to deactivate, now that Daud thinks of it. Lizzy was wavering. She wasn’t going to last much longer on her feet, whether she liked it or not. Thomas is already out of breath. His stamina has to be shot from sitting in an attic for months. They would not make it back to their starting point. But there was a dock at the very end of Pudding.

Three guards round the corner, their guns already drawn.

Daud sprints ahead. He’s already pulling out his canister of choke dust, aiming for their feet. The canister bursts and the guards stop in their tracks, coughing and momentarily blinded. Daud converges on the first one and slashes. The guard is flayed open, falling where he stood, and Daud rounds on the second and thrusts the tip of his blade into his throat. The last is just beginning to recover, so Daud kicks his legs out from under him and stabs him through the eye when he’s down. Then he turns back. Grabs Thomas’s hand and pulls him down to the end of the street.

“Wait down here,” Daud says as he peers down the chain that leads to the dock. “I’ll bring the skiff around.”

Lizzy just weakly nods. Thomas goes first, expertly sliding down the chain and only stumbling a bit at the end. He helps steady Lizzy as she comes down, and Daud knows she’s in a lot of pain when she doesn’t yell at him for it.

Getting back to Melusine is so much simpler, faster when he can just use Blink. Daud has to take a moment to learn the controls, having not paid any attention whatsoever when Lizzy was piloting the thing, and he hopes she doesn’t get too angry at the two dents he puts in it accidentally steering it into the wall.

Lizzy has her mask off by the time he comes back around, and her face is positively green. Thomas helps her step into the boat, at which point she starts shooing Daud away from the controls.

“Move. My boat, my rules.”

“You sure you won’t pass out at the wheel?”

Lizzy holds up one finger, but her reply is lost as she suddenly lurches to the side and loses her breakfast into the water.

Daud rolls his eyes and pats her back. “This is Lizzy, by the way.”

Thomas smiles, actually smiles. “We did our introductions while you were gone.”

Lizzy pushes herself back up, pushes his hand away. “Okay, okay, I’m fine now. Or I will be when I get a bottle of whiskey in me back at base.”

Daud sits down, and Lizzy steers the boat clear from the dock. Thomas stares over the water nervously. Daud removes his gloves and squeezes Thomas’s fingers as they watch the Legal District disappear behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't mentioned it, but Lizzy has not been wearing shoes this entire time.
> 
> I play through each mission before I write the chapters, just to make sure you can conceivable do all of what I describe. (with artistic license, of course) So Daud nearly falling to his death twice and stabbing a guard because he was startled were both things I did. I'm not very good at playing Dishonored. 
> 
> Also you can tell I got a lot of enjoyment out of the fact that one of the streets is named Pudding Street.
> 
> Billie's lines might seem a bit whiplash-inducing at times. Part of that's intentional. (the other part's shitty writing) The Talisman fulfills the same function as the Heart, but it's not the same thing. I referenced it a bit in the chapter the Talisman appears but, essentially, Billie is a hollow right now. She's seeing multiple realities and different outcomes, and while she is affected by Daud's chaos level, it doesn't permeate her as much as it will for other characters. She has moments of clarity where she remembers herself and can see Daud in a more unbiased way, but there are also times where she can't remember who she is and gives herself over to chaos. (and those things can intersect as well, like she can forget what her relationship to Daud is but her view of him will still be unobscured) Also it's Billie. She cares about people and wants things to improve, but she is by nature a very angry person.
> 
> It bothers me that there's never an explanation for why Corvo would kill Jessamine-and why the Loyalists would know he didn't. The only explanation I can think of is that they had found out who Burrows actually contracted for the job. Everyone else just kind of accepts that Corvo went mad and somehow was able to spirit Emily away by himself. You can also kill Jessamine in-game: you do lose instantly, even though she dies anyway. It's possible some of the Loyalists still thought he was her killer and decided it was a worthy risk, since Emily was his daughter and he would want to protect her. We'll touch more on the conspiracy against Daud later.
> 
> Notes on Future Chapters: I have one extra mission planned than there is in the original game, so the next real mission won't be the kidnap mission. (we don't have a Sokolov, but we'll find somebody to kidnap, don't worry) The equivalent of the Flooded District level will also be longer, since there's the whole secondary plotline that will be resolved. I'm probably also going to stop trying to fit everything between missions into one chapter, unless those chapters bore everyone. There's just more characters and interactions to work with, and I have a lot of scenes I want to use. I am kind of disappointed more people aren't reading this, but I hope y'all that are are enjoying it as much as I am. I am having such a ball with this AU, it's ridiculous. I wrote about 20k words for it over the span of three days last week. If only I could channel that focus into homework, or something I got paid for.


	9. High on the Lamphouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud has a conversation with a ghost. Keeping with the theme of this election day and taking down fascist governments. Fun stuff.
> 
> I've given up making these things shorter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh the first and last scenes are the only things here that's plot critical. The rest is just emotional bullshit. I was too manly to cry while writing this but I did tear up planning it out in the shower.
> 
> Also warning for one conversation where Daud and Lizzy talk and make jokes about her boobs.

They’re halfway back to Draper’s Ward when Daud makes the connection.

“Eliza Hat?!” he nearly yells. “You’re-you were talking about Mortimer Hat back there.”

Lizzy turns back long enough to roll her eyes. “Took you long enough to connect the dots.”

“The leader of the Hatters?” Thomas asks, cocking his head. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“He was my father.” Lizzy doesn’t take her eyes off the water. Behind her, Daud shakes his head.

“So the mill you ‘inherited’, that was the old Hatter base.”

“Don’t be saying it that way. Dad bought and legally owned that mill. What, you think Dunwall Tower wasn’t built with blood money?”

Daud curses and grumbles to himself. She’s right, of course. Every coin that passed through Dunwall had blood on it. The only difference between the Imperial reserves and whatever fortune the Hatters had amassed was who the law sided with.

Still, though. 

“I can’t believe you’re Mortimer Hat’s daughter and you never mentioned it.” Fuck, this felt way too familiar for Daud’s comfort.

Lizzy shrugs. “It never came up.”

“So let me get this straight.” Thomas holds up a hand. “You’re the daughter of one of the strongest gang leaders in Dunwall? And you’re helping me now?”

“The Hatters are hardly a force to be reckoned with now.” She yanks on some lever. “Dad’s dead.”

“Oh.” Thomas looks to his socked feet, thoroughly soaked through. “Well, I’m...sorry. I didn’t hear.”

“You wouldn’t of. Watch didn’t kill him. It was old age and bronchitis that did him in.” She takes out a cigar, sticks the end in her mouth, but she doesn’t light it. “Watch probably doesn’t even know.”

Daud leans over a bit to get a look at her face. “How old are you, Lizzy?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady her age?” She turns and smiles, but the motion makes her wince.

Daud bites the end of his own cigar. “Good thing I didn’t just ask one.”

“Fuck you, Daud. I’m twenty-six.”

She’s older than Billie, though not by much. The Emperor wasn’t exactly young when he had her-he would be nearing sixty now, were he still alive. Which was quite a bit younger than Mortimer Hat was supposed to be.

Thomas seems to mirror Daud’s thoughts. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Hat supposed to be, like-”

“A hundred years old?” Lizzy says. “Yeah, something like that. He was already an old fart when I was born. Dunno why ma let him knock her up. Probably because he had money.”

There was a story there; Daud could tell by her intense staring contest with the water, by the way she tensed at the mention of her mother. Billie had reacted similarly when her mother was brought up-the woman had beat Billie like a rag growing up, despite knowing she was the daughter of the Emperor. There was no love lost between them. Daud hadn’t understood it at the time-he would have given anything to be reunited with his own mother. But then he saw her scars, heard some of the things Billie had screamed at her as a child. He understood, after that. She had even once told Daud to imprison anyone who came to Dunwall Tower claiming to be her mother. If Lizzy’s mother was anything like that, he didn’t blame her for the animosity.

But on a boat on the Wrenhaven with a kidnapped Emperor was not the time and place for that conversation. So Daud lets it lie.

“So why were you going by a fake name,” Daud crosses his arms. “If you really are Hat’s kid?”

“Well, first of all, it wasn’t a fake name. Elizabeth is my name. It just so happens to be a stupid name with a lot of nicknames. It was either that or ‘Beth Hat’, and that doesn’t sound nearly as cool.”

She’s right; it didn’t.

Thomas scoots up in his seat. “Who were you giving a fake- _ different _ name to? And why?”

Lizzy huffs and speaks without turning back to look at them. “I told Daud I led a different gang for a while. The Dead Eels. They didn’t...get along with the Hatters.”

“So your gang was enemies with your father’s gang?” Daud says very slowly.

She turns around then, just to glare at him. “It’s not like it was intentional. We lived in total peace and harmony, until Draper’s Ward shut down.” She keeps bringing her cigar back to her lips and putting it down, despite it not being lit. “Then there was a huge turf war. I didn’t fan the flames, but I...didn’t really try to stop it either, you know.”

_ ‘She’s lost many friends, to both plague and gang violence alike. She wonders, when the drink wears off and her mind lingers on such things, if such a life is worth the thrill. But she knows no other way.’ _

“But anyway, we had to deal with some Hatters to get to you, Tommy-boy.” She mimics blowing smoke out of her mouth. “Don’t like ‘em, but there are worse fuckers you can do business with. They hold a grudge though, and they don’t remember Lizzy Stride fondly.” She drops the cigar in the built-in ashtray. “But they  _ love  _ Elizabeth Hat.”

“Well, thanks for telling me. And never call me that ever again.”

“What, Tommy? You can’t expect me to use that stuffy name all the time.”

“I do. Because it’s my name.”

Daud holds in a smile and trails his gloved finger over the water.

There’s people out to meet them at the docks. Gerald, Rose, Ricardo and the Dressmaker stand at the docks, while Galia Fleet stands at the top of the steps and keeps watch. They all stare eagerly as Lizzy guides Melusine in and docks it.

Thomas stands up in the boat, his fingers dancing over each other and uneasiness written across his face. He makes no attempt to disembark. Daud sidles up next to him and offers him his arm.

It’s something he did for Billie, probably a thousand times. When she was younger, when she was being called ‘Lady’ for the first time in her life. When she had a thousand eyes on her and she was melting away under their stares. When she was fourteen and expected to be an Empress. Whenever she was overwhelmed or scared, Daud would offer her his arm and a small smile. And she would smile back. Link her arm in his, fitting together at their elbows. Billie didn’t need the physical support-she didn’t faint like so many other noblewomen seemed to do so often. It was about reminding her that Daud was by her side. That she wasn’t in this alone.  

And when Thomas turns to him, Daud can tell he recognizes the way he holds his arm out. He smiles. And he takes Daud’s arm, and together they step off the boat and take the five or so steps forward.

“Lord Thomas. It is an absolute pleasure.” Gerald speaks for the group as the men all bow and Rose sweeps herself into an impressively low curtsy, nearly losing her balance in the process. 

“Pleasure’s mine,” Thomas says back, nodding his head in a slight bow. There’s a waver in his voice that someone unused to his way of speaking wouldn’t pick up. It’s probably been a while since he spoke to someone who wasn’t Timsh or his guards.

Gerald rounds his shoulders and puffs out his chest. “The masterminds behind your rescue are waiting inside, they-”

There’s a thud, and Daud turns around while Gerald continues droning on with barely a pause. Lizzy has stumbled getting off the skiff, and the Dressmaker rushes forward to help her up. She leans on him as she gets to her feet, but then she shoves his hands away. Daud sees how she’s favoring her left side.

“Can I meet them?” Thomas hasn’t heard her fall, and he doesn’t notice Lizzy limping up to their side.

“Yes!” Gerald somehow straightens up even more. “Young Reed ran ahead and let them know you were coming-they should be waiting for us in the lobby.”

“Thank you.”

Galia has made her way down the steps by now, and she bows like a man as Thomas nods, then sprints to close the gap between them and throws his arms around her. Rose comes forward, and it’s her that Lizzy leans on and allows to help her up the steps.

“Why are you all out here?” Daud says through gritted teeth to Galia. “I thought it was supposed to be dangerous out her in the daylight.”

Galia shrugs. “They told us to keep watch. I’ve been keeping an eye on everyone. No one was in any danger.”

But if there was, of course it would only be the servants who would be out here in plain sight. The important people were behind locked doors. The fact that Reed had been sitting out here bothers him even more. A child’s safety should have been prioritized. One Galia wouldn’t be enough to protect five people if they were spotted and attacked.

Daud pushes the anger down. He found Thomas today. Nothing is allowed to ruin his mood.

Rose and the Dressmaker help Lizzy up the steps while Daud keeps pace with Thomas. Every time Daud stops to look over his shoulder, check on Lizzy, Thomas hesitates and waits for him to catch up. Galia’s presence isn’t comfort enough for Thomas. He wants Daud.

True to their word, the entire conspiracy is waiting in the mall plaza, aside from Granny Rags who Daud has not actually seen since before he assassinated Luca. Including, strangely, an older man with a long, hooked nose and a checkered scarf draped around his neck like a tie. The entire group bows to Thomas as he steps in, and the man steps forward.

“Lord Thomas. It’s an honor to have you here.” The man reaches for Thomas’s hand and, to Thomas’s clear shock, bows to kiss it before letting it drop back to his side. “My name is William Trimble. My cohorts and I have been working to see you freed for quite some time now.”

“Thank...you.” Thomas just blinks. Trimble steps back and motions to the group.

“Allow me to make some introductions. This is Mister Edgar Wakefield-”

“Sup.” Edgar throws up two fingers. Next to him, Jerome squints.

“Right, a Navy man who worked with Miss Stride in the past. Jerome, who works tirelessly to supply us with the firepower we need. Over here is Lady Thalia Timsh.”

“I know my uncle was the one to hold you captive,” Thalia says, her fingers digging into the neckline of her blouse. “And I would like to sincerely apologize on the behalf of my family for everything you endured in his captivity. I do not reflect his ideals.”

“I understand.” Thomas glances to his feet. “I wouldn’t hold you accountable. Thank you, by the way.”

Thalia seems to preen at this, and Trimble quickly directs the attention away from her. “And this is Zhukov.”

“Hello.” Zhukov doesn’t move, makes no indication that he spoke in the first place. Thomas shifts under his red stare.

“And finally, Lady Lydia Boyle.”

Lydia takes the few steps forward and holds out her hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’ll be handling your tutoring while you’re with us.”

“You are?” Thomas seems to perk up at the mention of schoolwork. Nerd. “Have we met before? I believe I’ve only met Esma.”

“Yes, you were seated next to her for winter solstice feast last year, and she said you two talked for hours.” Lydia laughs. “She was quite enamoured with you. But no, I rarely attend those parties.”

Daud turns as the Dressmaker locks up the door behind them, and Rose ushers Lizzy over to a bench. Edgar is by her side in a flash.

“What the fuck happened?”

Lizzy punches him half-heartedly, but then her arm returns to her side. “Got shot. A little. M’fine, though.”

“You were  _ shot? _ ” The Dressmaker comes forward. “Lizzy, that phrase is not compatible with being fine!”

His hands go to Lizzy’s coat buttons, and she’s quick to slap them away. “What the fuck?”

“I need to see how badly you’re hurt!”

“I’m not! You’re the one who made this stupid coat. That bullet never touched me.”

Rose just shakes her head. “You can’t go unbuttoning random women’s coats, my dude.”

The Dressmaker turns red at this, and turns away. Trimble steps forward. “That’s enough. Elizabeth, I told you not to strain yourself.”

“Yes, because this bullet appeared in my side because of stress,” she spits. “That’s a thing that happens.”

Trimble just sighs. “Come with us to my apartment. I’ll get a look at you after I show Lord Thomas his quarters, I-”

“Thomas is staying with you?” Daud interrupts. Truthfully, he hadn’t given an ounce of thought to where Thomas would sleep. He hadn’t thought about what would happen after he saved him.

Lizzy snorts. “He is  _ not  _ staying with you.”

“Young lady-”

“Don’t fucking ‘young lady’ me, Tremble.” Lizzy leans forward the best she can. “Dad had to live with you the last few weeks of his life and the misery  _ literally  _ killed him. You’re not inflicting that on the kid.” She leans back and thumbs in Daud’s direction. “Plus Daud here doesn’t even know you. Doubt he feels okay with that arrangement.”

He didn’t, but it wasn’t about Daud’s feelings at this point. He’d defer to what made Thomas the most comfortable. He turns to him, mouth open to ask Thomas where he’d like to stay, when Edgar speaks up.

“Well, where the fuck else is he gonna sleep? We already shoved Daud in the attic.”

Jerome motions behind him. “There’s like, twenty stores in here that haven’t been claimed. There’s  _ plenty  _ of room.”

“That’s a security issue.” Trimble rubs his temples. “If we’re breached, it would be through the mall. We can close off access between here and the mill, and my apartment is out of the way. One of the last places they’d look.”

Billie’s voice breaks free above the cacophony of voices. She no longer has eyes, but Daud knows she uses his, and she glares at Trimble with a burning intensity he’s only seen from her a number of times.

_ “ _ **_Don’t_ ** _ trust him.” _

Daud holds his hands up. “That’s enough,” he yells, and the argument quiets down, everyone looking slightly embarrassed with themselves. Daud lowers his hands and turns. “Thomas is seventeen. He’s going to be making decisions for the entirety of the Empire soon, so he can damn well choose where he wants to sleep.”

Trimbles huffs, but he seems to relent. “You’re right, Daud. Of course.” He turns to Thomas and smiles, his cracked lips stretching over his teeth. “It would be prudent of you to stay with me for the time being. The choice is yours, but I can offer-”

“I want to stay with Daud.” Thomas’s voice comes out rushed, then he blushes and looks to his feet. “I mean, if that’s okay with you. I’d like to.”

Daud certainly didn’t fucking mind, but Trimble turns his nose up at the suggestion. “It would be quite inappropriate for someone of your age and stature to cohabitate with a grown man in a single room.”

“We’re living in a goddamn textile mill, I think we can drop any ideas we have about decorum,” Daud grunts. Fuck, he was going to lose it if they started in on proper behavior and shit with Thomas. He had dealt with it with Billie, because in all fairness she  _ was  _ a teenage girl while he was a gruff, older and unrelated man, but it had driven him crazy even then. You can’t go into the princess’s chambers unaccompanied at night, never mind that assassins didn’t have a curfew. You can’t whisper to the Lady and make her laugh because anything said in such hushed tones was naturally dirty and inappropriate. You can’t hold the teenaged Empress’s hand when she’s nervous because then people will get  _ ideas _ . Fuck. He wasn’t doing that again. Thomas was a man, but even if he wasn’t, Daud refused to handle him with gloves like people wanted him to do with Billie. The nobles wanted to pretend that they were fragile, but Daud knew Thomas and Billie were anything but. And they didn’t want to be treated like it.

“There’s two entrances to the attic,” Jerome says. “We can put up a divider or something, pretend like it’s two rooms, if you’re really worried about decency.”

“I think it would be good for Thomas to be near someone familiar.” Lydia smiles. “It’s just for now, anyway.”

Trimble groans. “Fine, fine.” He turns away. “So that’s settled. Return to your jobs, everyone. I need to see Miss Elizabeth in my clinic.”

He would need to see Thomas too, to look at his arm. But that can wait, for now. It’s been six months, and Thomas didn’t appear to be in pain. Daud turns to him. “You’re trading one attic out for another, Thomas. Just to be sure you’re okay with that.”

Thomas shakes his head. “It’s fine if it has a stove and a door that locks from my side. And as long as you’re there, I know I’m safe.”

Daud presses his lips together to hide his smile, and reaches up to brush the back of his hand across Thomas’s face. “You will be.” Then he lowers his arm and glances down at Thomas’s wet socks, his pant legs clinging to his calves. “You will need new clothes, though.”

He turns around and yells Rose’s name. She straightens up, looking slightly terrified. Daud motions back to Thomas, and takes care to lower his voice this time. “Do you think you can take Thomas shopping? Find him something warmer to wear?”

She looks stunned for a moment, but then she grins and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” She turns to wear Lizzy’s sitting, still on the bench. “Can you make it to Trimble’s or…”

Lizzy bops her on the nose, waves her away. “I can fucking walk, Rose-dew. Just…” She tries and fails to stand up on her own. “Just get...get me on my feet,” she wheezes.  

“Lizzy, shut the fuck up. I’ll take her,” Daud says to Rose, who nods and scampers away to Thomas.

The Dressmaker is still hovering over her like a nervous mother hen. “I don’t think you should try to walk, Eliz-Lizzy. Do you want me to carry you?”

“Try to pick me up and you lose every finger you touch me with.”

Daud rolls his eyes and grabs Lizzy by the elbow. “Then stop bitching and start walking.” He turns back to Thomas. “I’ll meet you later. Hang out with Rose for a little bit.”

Thomas nods, and he waves as they both turn away. They’re already chatting with each other. If Rose can lose the anxiety she seems to have around certain people here, Daud has no doubt she and Thomas will get along. It’s just what he needs right now. Someone his age, smart and equally snarky. A distraction.

The Dressmaker has been thoroughly shooed away by Lizzy, who is now taking the smallest steps imaginable towards Trimble’s apartment. “Yeah, love you too, Edgar,” she mutters under her breath. True to her word, Edgar Wakefield is nowhere to be found. Dipped out as soon as Trimble dismissed him, apparently. Bitch.

  
  


“Lizzy, I respect your dedication, but if you don’t pick up the pace I  _ will  _ pick up your ass.”

She just shoots Daud the finger and continues trudging along. He’s not watching her suffer because he’s afraid of her-he knows Lizzy isn’t stupid enough to try and knife him. No, he just wants her to eat her words. She wants to be stubborn and make her way to the clinic in agonizing, completely avoidable pain? Fine. Daud wasn’t going to fuck with that.

Trimble is waiting for them, smoking a cigarette by his front door. If he’s surprised by Daud’s presence, he doesn’t show it. “Come with me. Mind the steps.”

Of course there were fucking stairs. Narrow and steep, and Trimble’s feet echo between the cinderblock walls as he bangs up the steps. Of all places, Daud would think that the clinic would be the thing to put on the ground floor.

Lizzy grips the hand railing and cringes as she tries to take the first step. Daud finally just sweeps her up and carries her, minding not to bang her ankle against the rail. She doesn’t protest.

Daud puts Lizzy down on the cot Trimble points to, who then checks his watch. “I have an experiment I need to check on, excuse me. If you can get your shirt off for me, Elizabeth, I’ll take a look at your injury when I get back.”

_ ‘He could have kept the old man alive forever. Would have, too. Despite his begging.’ _

Lizzy gets her coat buttons undone easily enough, but Daud has to help her sit up enough to slide her arms out. Her vest and thermal undershirt, then finally her chemise and bra. She makes a smart-ass comment about how easily he’s able to unhook her bra, but he smacks her in the head and declines to comment. He figures it wouldn’t do him any good to mention he’s had to do this for Billie whenever she got stuck in her dresses and formalwear. She never took to having female attendants. She made much better friends with her male guards. But an Empress couldn’t really ask them to help her out of a stubborn dress.

There’s no blood on her underclothes, but the bruise is already forming. Thick and dark purple, blooming from her left rib cage. Fuck, it must hurt. Lizzy lays flat on her back and tries to breathe with her stomach. Daud’s gaze trails up higher.

“Uh, at the risk of sounding perverted…”

“Go ahead.” Lizzy waves her hand. “Ask. Everyone wants to know.”

“Okay. What the fuck happened to your nipple?”

Specifically the lack thereof. Her left breast was fine-he figured it was, at least. Daud hadn’t seen a great many pairs of breasts in his life, but from his admittedly small sample group, he can infer that Lizzy’s was relatively normal. Her right, however, had nothing but a few stitches and haphazard patches of darker skin in place of where her nipple was supposed to be. 

Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Found out the hard way to wear a fucking bra. Long story-one that involves copious amounts of alcohol, waving my shirt over my head, and a guy coming at me with a garden hook.”

“He...tore off you nipple?”

“I assume he was trying to bash my chest in, but I never really asked.” She shakes her head. “I’m guessing that’s not really the  _ smartest _ way to kill someone with a garden hook? But I wasn’t about to stop and give him pointers.”

Daud’s never killed anyone with a brush hook, but he did have to fend someone off once who had dressed up like a gardener and tried to maul Billie with one. They could do a hell of a lot of damage, if they had the opportunity to wind up and swing. Billie had gotten her knife into the crux of his elbow before he had even swung the hook all the way back. Daud would have gotten to him before he had the chance to bring it down on her head anyway, so it just hadn’t been a very good assassination attempt on many fronts.

Lizzy grins. “Good thing my tits were already small. You can’t even tell they’re lopsided most days.”

Daud shakes his head. “I can’t say I noticed. So you’re just-is that okay? Like, healthwise, to just not have a nipple?”

“Are you using yours for anything, Daud?”

“That’s different.” Daud rolls his eyes. “Let’s just say if you did have a kid-”

“Oh, fuck, don’t even say that,” Lizzy groans. “You know, I told Edgar, back when we would fuck for fun, that if he knocked me up either he could take care of it or I would. And him taking care of it would mean me throwing the kid at him and never seeing either of them again. Me taking care of it would involve a coat hanger and some whiskey.”

“We’re talking the most hypothetical of hypothesis here,” Daud says, and he has to pause to ward off the smile. “Through some apocalyptic mean and a complete personality shift, you had a small human trying to chew off your nipple.”

“My existing nipple,” Lizzy corrects.

“Right, your one nipple.” He snorts then. He can’t hold in the smile. “But that’s the thing, there would be no way for them to, like, eat from your other one. So would it just swell up? Wouldn’t that  _ hurt _ ?”

Lizzy laughs and shakes her head. “I dunno, would this boob even produce milk and shit then?” She motions to her chest and makes a blowing-up gesture. “I’m just imagining one boob getting huge while the other stays completely limp, and-”

They can’t do it anymore. Both Daud and Lizzy dissolve into laughter, a belly-aching, tear-producing laughter that doesn’t stop for several minutes. Every time they start to settle down, they meet each other’s eye and just break into giggles over the absurdity of it all.

After a good five minutes of uproarious laughter, Trimble still hasn’t returned and Daud is still sitting there, wiping water from his eyes as Lizzy lounges on the cot. She reaches over, her face calm, and touches his arm. 

“Hey. Are we...okay?”

Daud presses his palm over the top of her hand, pointedly not looking at her. Were they?

He still felt lied to. Deceived and betrayed. If Lizzy had thought him capable of killing Billie, what else did she think of him? What kind of person did she assume he was, and did she really like him, or that idea she had of him?

She had literally taken a bullet for Thomas.

“Yeah.” Daud means to say it louder, but it comes out barely above a whisper. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I think we’re fine.”

“Good.” Lizzy squeezes his arm. “I know you better now. And I’m...sorry.” She pulls her arm back, staring at the ceiling. “Not about thinking you killed her. Just...I’m sorry she’s gone.”

Daud’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, and all he can think to say is that he’s sorry too. And that’s pointless. So he doesn’t say anything.

Trimble walks in after a beat, and he looks at Daud with a funny face. “You don’t need to look so troubled. I’m a family friend. Elizabeth knows me.”

“Heard you treated her father,” Daud says. Lizzy mumbles something, but then flops her head back down.

Trimble nods. “Yes, for the last few years of his life. He was in very poor health, oh, and he’d haunt me forever if I let something happen to his darling daughter.” He goes to Lizzy’s bedside and slides on his spectacles. “So you don’t need to worry. Elizabeth is in very good hands with me.”

If he’s trying to get Daud to leave, he’s only succeeded in making him dig in his heels even harder. 

Trimble clicks his tongue as he looks Lizzy over, and she yelps when he presses his fingers to her bruise. “Your rib’s been re-broken. I told you not to go out in the field.”

“What the fuck was I supposed to do?” Lizzy throws her hands up. “We can’t all sit around with our thumbs up our asses,  _ Bill _ .”

“Well, with your track record, soon you won’t have any thumbs left to insert up there.” He pushes himself up as Lizzy groans.

_ ‘He hates her. He wishes the Hatters had succeeded in killing her.’  _ Billie’s voice is light and airy.  _ ‘Old Hat need not to even know his daughter had perished.’ _

Daud gets to his feet to look over to where Trimble stood, mixing liquids together. Lizzy pipes up from the cot. “You’re not going to give me the shot, are you?”

“I have to, Elizabeth. Unless you want to lie here perfectly still for several weeks while your rib heals.”

She mutters under her breath. Trimble turns around with an absolutely  _ enormous  _ needle, and Daud holds his hand up. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a syringe.” Trimble stares at him over his spectacles. “It’s to encourage bone growth.”

“It hurts like a bitch,” Lizzy complains.

Trimble waves Daud out of his way. “Only for a minute, dear.” He grunts as he holds her hip in place. “Hold still.”

Lizzy’s face screws in the most absolute expression of pain Daud has ever seen on her. Her breath hitches and her fingers dig into the fabric as Trimble pushes the plunger down, and Daud does not try to hold her hand.

 

* * *

 

“Daud?”

Daud quickly squirrels away the bone charm he’d been examining. Thomas stands at the end of the partition, a cobbled together mess of upturned tables and old looms that had been stored up here. Someone had hung sheets from the rafters to hide the gaps in the furniture. Daud had to give them credit, they did a pretty good job in dividing the room and giving both him and Thomas some privacy. Completely unnecessary, and patchworked cloth dividers weren’t really befitting of an Emperor, but whatever made the kooks in charge feel better.

The place was almost cozy like this. Daud had pushed his tables up against the partition and laid his junk and weapons over them. His bones all stayed in a special desk with a roll-top that Daud had every intention of pad-locking as soon as Jerome found one for him. His little table with his rune and Billie’s coin in the corner. The stove was on Daud’s side, but it was right next to the gap in the partition, and Thomas claimed the other side warmed up just fine. Rose had made up a bed for him by laying cushions over a low chest of drawers. They had still been up there together when Daud came upstairs, talking about bullshit and laughing to themselves. She must have left by now.

“Hey.” Daud gets to his feet as Thomas walks across the floor. “I talked to Trimble. He said he’ll see you anytime you want. About your arm.” Daud motions when Thomas looks confused, and he raises his arm in response. “It doesn’t still hurt, does it?”

Thomas shakes his head. “No, it’s just...my hand doesn’t work as easily. I have to try harder to grab stuff with it.”

That certainly didn’t sound good. Daud frowns, wonders if he should just take Thomas over now, if nothing else to alleviate his mind, but Thomas just shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal for now. Did...is Lizzy okay?”

Daud nods, sitting down on his bed. “She was already recovering from a broken rib-the bullet just didn’t help matters. She’ll be fine after some rest.” 

That was all true. Daud had deposited Lizzy back at her quarters, left her with a bottle of gin and his laudanum. He had reminded her that the Bond would increase her healing, so she was facing maybe a couple days of bedrest tops, and she better suck that up because he wasn’t carrying her ass around during their next mission.

“That’s good. Good.” Thomas nods. “She’s cool. I like Lizzy.”

“Mmm.” He’s stalling for time. Daud knows Thomas too well, knows how he tugs his arms back so far his hands wrap around elbows, except today only his right hand does it while his left dangles uselessly at the small of his back. Daud shifts aside so Thomas can sit down, if he chooses to. “What’s on your mind?”

Thomas opens his mouth, then closes it again, gulps. He stares at the floor. “It’s just…” He looks up at Daud, his eyes already dull and disappointed. 

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

The question catches Daud by surprise. And he has to turn away, look away from Thomas’s pleading eyes, begging him to tell him what they both knew was all a lie. 

“Yes.” Daud says it to the floor. “Billie is dead.”

Saying it seems to open a physical wound on Daud’s chest, a pain so sharp flaring up he has to suppress the urge to reach up and press against his heart. His entire body suddenly feels impossibly heavy, and his stomach turns over like he’s about to puke. His hands shake, but Daud hides them between his legs so Thomas doesn’t see.

To his credit, Thomas doesn’t gasp or burst into tears. He makes little fists and holds them to thighs, his eyes shiny but as-of-yet dry. “They told me...but they also told me you…” His shoulders slump. “I hoped.”

“I know.” It’s easier for Daud to say it to Thomas’s feet, but he knows that’s not how this should be done. “You didn’t hear the loudspeakers?”

Thomas shakes his head. “The attic was soundproof. The most I ever heard was some murmurs when they led me down to…” He lets out a deep breath and falls back onto Daud’s bed. “I suppose they would have announced it, wouldn’t they? Did...did you go to her funeral?”

Daud shakes his head. “Thomas, you know I couldn’t be there.”

“Why not?” He turns to Daud, more beaten down than accusing. “You could have worn a disguise. She would have wanted at least one of us there.”

Daud opens his mouth to ask, if Thomas even knew that Daud was in prison, but his next sentence sinks in and he slumps forward. Neither of them, the two people she was closest to in life, had been at her funeral. That...hurts more than Daud expects it to.

“They...mentioned flowers,” Daud says, purposely not mentioning who ‘they’ were. “There were flowers, and a big long procession with horses and fanfare and all that shit. And that people wept for her.” He leaves out the parts about her casket being nailed closed, because a waterlogged corpse that had its eyes and tongue plucked out by sea creatures was too unsightly. About how they had to wrap her in a shroud instead of just laying her down in her soft, velvet-lined coffin, because there was so little left of her. Because she nearly fell apart when the morticians tried to pick her up.

Thomas almost laughs. “Better not have been carnations,” he says. “She hated carnations.”

That was true. She thought carnations were too frilly or something. Knowing Delilah, she probably covered Billie’s tomb with them. But the thought just makes Daud angry. He instead imagines the flowers she did like, tulips and dandelions and violets, clutched in her hands and laying over her. It’s stupid. Billie had never cared much for flowers. But it makes Daud feel better, just a little.

There’s a little hitch in Thomas’s breath. He’s still staring at the floor, his fingers gripping his kneecaps and his eyes red and shiny with unspilled tears. And Daud is struck by the horrible, selfish desire for Thomas not to cry.

It’s better for him to cry, Daud knows. Thomas needs to mourn. He knows that, objectively. But there’s still the nagging voice in the back of his head, the voice that sounded like the Actor’s for so many years until Daud realized he couldn’t even remember the man’s voice, and that the one he had in his head only sounded like himself. The one that mocked Thomas for daring to cry in front of Daud, for showing weakness in front of another. The one that wanted to scream at him to stop, to suck it up and move on with his life, because Daud hasn’t shed a single tear over her and Thomas shouldn’t be able to either.

But this is all illogical. Horrible. So Daud just stares at the floor while Thomas breaks into full-on sobs. He puts his hand out and Thomas takes it, but Daud makes no move to squeeze, to comfort him. He’s never known how. And he has no energy to try and get it right. So instead he just waits as Thomas cries, as he mourns his poor, dead, murdered sister.

After the tears have subsided and Thomas has devolved into hiccups, Daud still doesn’t look at him, but he does speak. “When this is all over, when we’re back at Dunwall Tower, we’ll go down to the Imperial Crypt ourselves. To...to her grave. Just the two of us. And we’ll say our goodbyes.”

Thomas nods. “Can we bring her violets?”

“Of course. We can do whatever you want.”

“Good,” he hiccups. “Good.”

They sit in silence for a long moment. Daud doesn’t allow his mind to ruminate on the subject, of how he’ll say farewell. He thinks of the Talisman, always at his fingertips and not. How much comfort it had brought him, and how much it’ll hurt to leave it behind. But he must. Billie must know peace. That’s something he’ll deal with when he gets to it, though. There’s no point in thinking, in hurting about it now. And after a while, Thomas speaks up again, his voice quiet and scared.

“I have to be Emperor now, don’t I?”

Daud solemnly nods. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

Thomas shakes his head, swipes the back of his hand across his eyes. “I thought about some of the other families, people who were actually related to the old Emperor…” He sits up straighter. “But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be Emperor, but...but I want to do right by her. I want to make Billie proud.”

“We’ll preserve her legacy,” Daud squeezes his hand. “We’ll make sure this wasn’t all for nothing.”

Thomas would carry her memory in the way he ruled. He would continue her reign of justice, of countering corruption and draining the swamp that Dunwall politics had become. And Thomas wouldn’t single-handedly take credit for any of it, Daud knew. Billie would always be the person he owed his success to, the person he reminded the people had originally stood and fought for their sake. He wouldn’t forget it, and he wouldn’t let them forget. In this way, Billie’s values would be immortal, even if she hadn’t been. They would remember her name and Thomas’s for centuries, and owe the revival of the Empire to them.

“I’ll have to turn over a new court,” Thomas says. “I don’t know how many people Lady Kaldwin influenced. I’ll have to find a good Spymaster-someone I trust who can root them out.” He looks to Daud then, his blue eyes round and trustful. “You’ll be my Royal Protector, won’t you Daud?”

Daud’s not stupid enough to say no outright. He wants to-wants to remind Thomas that he had already failed, that an assassin had made it past him and killed one Empress. How could Thomas trust him, after Daud watched him be stabbed and watched his sister die? He didn’t deserve it. Billie hadn’t gotten any second chances, and neither should Daud.

But really, who else  _ could  _ protect Thomas better than Daud could? He was a superior fighter to every man and woman in both the Watch and the Navy-he had duelled many of them, supposedly the best of the best, and they had all come up lacking. And Daud had magic on his side now. He would suppress it, hide it in the interest of keeping Thomas free from his heresy, but it was there if Thomas’s life was really in danger.

“If you want me to,” Daud says carefully. “But I’d give it some thought before you make a decision.”

Thomas’s face falls. “I thought you enjoyed being Billie’s Protector.”

He had. It had been a stressful job, but an important one. And he loved being able to spend so much time with her. He wishes he had cherished it more, now, when he had it.

“It’s not about what I want.” Daud shifts so he’s facing Thomas on the bed. “But you have to think about problems from all sides now. Try to think of some issues people might have with me being your Royal Protector.”

“Who cares what people think?” Thomas narrows his eyes. “It’s about keeping the Empress...keeping the ruler safe. Nothing else should matter.”

Daud had to agree with that. He had a similar argument when Billie appointed him her Royal Protector. (And, weirdly enough, she had asked him in almost the exact same way) The Emperor had objected, citing his inexperience with nobility and his murky lineage, his foreign birth. Daud had pointed out that even the Emperor’s own Royal Protector couldn’t beat Daud in a duel. And had reminded him that it was about protecting his daughter before it was a social position. Perhaps Thomas is remembering that.

“Thomas.” Daud grabs his other hand, and makes a face before he can get the words out. “Thomas, I’m getting old.”

Thomas side-eyes him. “You’re not  _ that  _ old.”

“Not now, but you’re young. You’ll rule for decades, with any luck.” If Daud had any say in it. “Do you really want to pick a Protector you’ll just have to replace in a few years?”

He’s not being entirely truthful. While it was true that Daud was getting to the age where he was  _ supposed  _ to be slowing down, the Mark had strange effects on him. Daud felt twenty years younger, quicker and sharper than he was even back when he met Billie. He doesn’t know how old he’ll be when he starts feeling the effects of old age again, but it could very well be a while. That was good from his point of view, but the problem was that people would expect him to tucker out, to have to retire. Most rulers went through two or three Protectors in their lifetime, even if they all lived to retirement age. Daud doubts he’ll ever retire, even if he didn’t have the Mark, but it would arouse suspicion if the Royal Protector was still flipping grown men over his shoulder at seventy. 

It would be ten years, maybe fifteen before the court demanded Thomas retire Daud and replace him with someone younger, at best. He was only three years older than Billie was when she took the throne, and her advisors had hammered in the point then. With how technology would progress, and provided she was kept safe and healthy, Billie could have easily ruled into her eighties. Thomas was looking at five or six decades of being Emperor. He was better off choosing younger Protectors he wouldn’t have to replace so often, running the risk that one would prove untrustworthy.

Daud pulls on Thomas’s hand, bringing his attention back. “And even after my name is cleared, I don’t think people are going to be too fond of the idea of me being the Royal Protector again.”

Thomas blinks. “What do you mean, ‘when your name is cleared’?”

He didn’t know. That look, the look of utter confusion, confirmed it. Daud pulls his hand away and shoves in through his hair.

“Thomas,” he says slowly, gently. “I’ve been in Coldridge for the last six months. I was...convicted of killing Billie.”

“What?” Thomas breathes. “They...what?”

“Well, I guess convicted isn’t really the right word, considering there was never a trial.” Daud keeps his gaze firmly on the floorboards. 

“But you didn’t…” Thomas digs his hands into his hair. “I  _ saw  _ it. Lady Kaldwin and the others, they told me you hired that assassin, and that’s why you just watched. And then they had me kidnapped me back. But I didn’t believe them!”

“I know you didn’t, Thomas,” Daud says, the strain in his voice coming out. “I couldn’t move. They-you know they were witches. It was magic. I couldn’t fight back.” Of course they had to spin a new tale to Thomas, who had seen the whole thing happen. They had to get him on their side somehow. And by the time they coronated him, Daud would be dead and even an Emperor couldn’t do anything about that. But Thomas had seen through their act from the very beginning. They underestimated his intelligence.

Daud gets to his feet. He trudges over to the table where he’s piled his notes and books he’s pilfered from the bookstore. The wanted poster is still folded up neatly, in the same corner he had put it earlier when he shucked his coat. He hadn’t had the strength to look at it again.

He hands it to Thomas, who unfolds it and immediately slaps a hand over his mouth. He looks sick for a moment then he drops his head, lets his arm dangle and his knuckles brush against the floor.

“Fuck. She’s really dead, then. She’s really dead.”

His voice breaks, and Daud steels himself for another bout of crying, for standing there and pretending he doesn’t see, but Thomas just takes a deep breath and returns his eyes to the poster.

His eyebrows knit together and his lip curls, staring at the top. “I should have agreed to be their Emperor. To  _ behave _ . Then I could have had them all killed as soon as I was crowned.”

There would likely be multiple problems with the plan, but Daud doesn’t bother pointing them out. Thomas scoffs and throws the poster to the floor. “That’s sick. To suggest you would- _ sick _ . And you had to watch-we both lost her, and they had you arrested. By the Void, I  _ hate  _ them.”

Daud bends to scoop up the poster, nodding as he folds it back up without looking at the contents. He puts it back on his desk, neatly lined up with his other papers.

Thomas bends forward, making the bed creak. “And you were in Coldridge? How-are you alright?”

“We’re not talking about me right now, Thomas.” Daud keeps his back to him. He’s not talking about Coldridge ever. Not with Thomas, not with anyone.

He was even careful when he took off his armor, made sure he had a long-sleeved shirt to change into when he went to bathe. Daud had scars from his youth and his career as a thief, some from palace duels or training with Billie. Those ones Thomas has seen before. But he hasn’t seen the straight, even burns that line his arms that were so obviously deliberately inflicted. Daud has whip marks across his back, scars on the underside of his feet where they cut the soles and stab wounds on his thighs. He’s missing teeth, but thankfully they had started with pulling his molars at the back of his mouth, which had hurt more but weren’t visibly obvious. And those were just the things that left physical marks. 

Thomas would never see his scars, would never know what he had to go through in order to maintain the truth. Daud would never tell him. He’d kill Delilah and then he’d hunt down all the torturers, drown them like they nearly did to him so many times. Fuck, there’d be records, wouldn’t there? Thomas would find those. He would look, because he’d want to know. Would want to help him. Daud would just have to find them first, destroy them. Thomas was never finding out all that happened to him at Coldridge. There were some things Daud would take to his grave.

“If you say so, Daud.” Thomas sighs.

Daud turns around and rests his butt against the table, crossing his arms. “You have other things to worry about now. Worry about your studies. Worry about what you’re going to do first on the throne. Let me worry about the rest.”

“I know.” Thomas leans back, staring at the ceiling. “Things are going to be okay now. Now that you’re here. I know I can trust you.”

Daud takes the few steps back to the bed and, when he sits back down, surprises even himself by pulling Thomas in for a bone-crushing hug. He strokes Thomas’s hair, inhaling his scent. He would protect this.

Thomas would never be hurt again. Regardless of whether Daud ends up his official Protector, he will keep him safe. He will work ten times as hard, twenty times as hard to ensure it. Nothing would touch him. And if something did…

No. He’s not even going to allow himself to entertain that possibility. Thomas would outlive Daud, live to be an old, old man and an accomplished Emperor. And if somehow he didn’t, if he failed Thomas too, then Daud would...then he’d find some way to die. But he didn’t need to worry about that now.

Thomas shudders in his arms, whispers against Daud’s shoulder with a shake in his voice. “I miss her.”

“I miss her too.”

They stay like that for a good long minute, an uncomfortably long period of body contact for Daud with anyone who wasn’t one of his streetrats. Then Thomas pulls away. “Hang on. I have something.”

Daud follows and watches him from edge of the partition with his eyebrows raised. Thomas digs around in his pillowcase for a moment, casting out loose notes and scribbles onto the table before he finds it.

He turns around and presents it to Daud, whose mouth goes dry.

“Is that…”

Thomas nods. “They made me change my clothes, but I hid this from them.”

Daud takes it, runs his thumb over the diamonds, cut to resemble petals. The long, golden curve of the clip. The hairpin Billie had been wearing, out behind the tower, the day she was…

Thomas had put it in his pocket, right, because the hairpin kept falling out. And he had managed to smuggle it away, hide it through his months of captivity.

Thomas digs his toe into the floor. “It’s not much. And she didn’t really like it anyway. But it’s...it’s all I had of her. It’s all  _ we  _ have.”

It was. And it would do.

Daud turns back to his side and motions for Thomas to follow. They come back to the little table, with Billie’s rune and coin on display, and lays the hairpiece to the other side.

Thomas seems to understand, at least. He scurries off and comes back with a single candle, which they light and push back into the far corner. Daud digs up the sword he used to break out of Coldridge, the blade shiny and cleaned, and lays it across the table. There was some bullshit symbolism there. He rearranges the display slightly, props the rune up with some books so it sits higher than the sword, rests the coin and hairpin in front. 

Daud sits on the floor and watches the candle flicker. Thomas drops down besides him. And they don’t say a damn word to each other.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t remember where Thomas was that day. Probably at lessons with his governess, or off playing with some noble’s kid. He didn’t need to be watched at the time.

Daud had been making laps around Dunwall Tower, which he did all too often back then to ward off the boredom. The idleness. He wasn’t used to having nothing to do. When Billie or Thomas were around, it was better, but palace living had left Daud feeling useless and utterly bored.

He was on his third lap of the top floor, reversing direction this time so the maids didn’t think him quite so odd, when he heard about the attack.

Billie had to go to some event with the Emperor that day, something halfway across the city that both Daud and Billie knew better than to ask if he could accompany her to. They would travel there by carriage, accompanied the Emperor’s Royal Protector. She was supposed to be safe.

Daud doesn’t remember who had staged the assault, or even why. But they had cut the power to their railcar, stranding them in the middle of the street with the closest guard presence a good thirty yards away. And then bullets had reigned down on their carriage.

To the Emperor’s very little credit, he did push Billie down before hitting the floor himself. Neither of them were shot. If Daud had been told this by the maids he had cornered and aggressively questioned, he didn’t absorb it. He had just booked it to the infirmary.

The Emperor was there, looking frazzled but none the worse for wear, smoking down a cigar while he waited for his Royal Protector’s single bullet graze to be patched up. Daud had asked, frantically, where Billie was and how badly she was hurt, and if he had been allowed to continue on much longer he probably would have berated the Emperor for not being with her. But the Royal Physician had waved him away, told him that Billie’s worst injury was where her shoulder hit the floor of the carriage and might bruise later. She was fine. Billie was fine, and she had left the infirmary as soon as she was okayed.

Daud didn’t even bother checking her room.

He had found himself at one of the corners of Dunwall Tower’s top floor, in front of a fireplace that was never lit. Decorative, the servants had said. No chimney connected to it. As such, there was a trellis overgrown with ivy situated dangerously close to the hearth, or would be if it was a functional fireplace. As it was, it was just a pretty decoration, one that happened to easily hide any teenage girls who wanted to sneak through.

Daud winds the nonfunctional lightswitch to the right of the fireplace in the particular way that would trigger the back to rise, and he takes a quick look around to ensure no one’s watching before slipping behind the trellis and ducking under the mantle.

Billie has always been good at getting into things she wasn’t supposed to. He had learned very quickly not to bring anything home he didn’t want her getting her hands on, because there was no hiding anything from her curious eyes. And if there was a hidden door or passageway in Dunwall Tower that Billie didn’t find within her first month of living there, Daud still doesn’t know where it would be. But the secret room behind the fireplace on the top floor, seemingly untouched for a decade, that had quickly become her favorite, her retreat. And it’s here that Daud finds her, sitting on the military cot she’d dragged in and kicking her feet.

“Hey.” Daud stands up, already pressing the button to lower the secret door. “I heard about what happened.”

Billie doesn’t say anything. Just stares at the floor, continues to kick her feet. Daud feels better now, now that he’s seen her and knows she’s okay. She’s shed her fancy shoes. More like chucked them at the opposite wall, judging from the way they’re splayed across the floor.

Daud hooks his thumbs in his pockets. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Billie vigorously shakes her head. Still the floorboards. Kick, kick, her socked feet not even reaching the ground.

Daud doesn’t waver. “Do you want me to go?”

She hesitates. And, much smaller this time, she shakes her head again.

Daud sits beside her on the cot. He watches her kick her feet, like she’s running without ever getting anywhere. But her legs soon tire. As they always do.

Daud keeps himself open to her, not direct but allowing her to make the decision herself. And eventually she accepts, crumbling into his side and burying her face in his chest.

Billie weeps. It’s the soft, muffled kind of crying that kids learn to do when they know they’ll get beaten for it, and even though they’re in a soundproof room in a palace where no one would ever raise a hand to her, Billie cries quietly like she’s always done. Daud wraps his arms around her and just lets her. He never knows what to say, how to stroke her hair in just the right way to soothe her. So he never does, and Billie takes what he offers.

Eventually her tears pewter out and she pulls away, her red-rimmed eyes still focused on the wood grains. Daud keeps his arm around her.

“They were trying to kill me.”

Daud nods. “I know. I heard.”

“I didn’t  _ do  _ anything to them.” Her voice breaks, but she just swallows and carries on. “I didn’t even know them.”

“It doesn’t matter. This wasn’t personal.” Well, to Daud it certainly was, because they had almost killed his Billie. But to them? She was just another Queen on the chessboard that needed toppling.

“But  _ why _ ?” She turns up to him then, tears welling back up in her eyes. “I’m not even Empress yet. They don’t know what I’ll do. If they had just told me why they were angry, what their problems were, I could have helped them. I can’t help them if I’m dead!”

She starts shaking then, and Daud presses her against his side under she stops. And he knows it’s from fear, that it’s the middle of summer so she’s not chilled, but he takes his coat off anyway and slips in around her shoulders. It’s just reflex at this point. Making sure she’s warm. Billie draws the coat around her like a blanket.

“They wanted me dead.”

“Billie.” His fingers at her chin. “Billie, look at me.” Her round brown eyes, filled with such fear. And trust. “You’re going to be Empress one day. Hopefully not for a while, but someday.” He speaks slowly, not because he doesn’t think she’ll understand, but because he wants to be sure he gets the point across. “And some people are going to hate the Empress. It doesn’t matter what you do or who you help. You can be the greatest Empress the world has ever seen and somebody will still have a problem with you. They hate what you represent. Not the things you do.”

“I don’t want to be Empress anymore.” Billie shakes her head, her curls bouncing against her cheeks as she moves. She buries her head back in Daud’s chest and Daud plays with her hair, not pointing out that she had never wanted to be Empress in the first place.

They sit like that for a while, until her breathing steadies out and the enormous clock in the library tolls beneath them so loud they can hear it through the floor. Then Daud sits her up and holds her at arm’s length.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asks, looking her straight in the eye. “Are you going to cower and let them win? Or are you going to fight back?”

She steels her shoulders, and that angry, determined look in her eye that he’s come to love makes an appearance. “I’m going to show them what a great Empress looks like.”

That’s his girl.

“You’re going to be the best goddamn Empress there ever was.” Daud forces himself to smile. “You’re going to make them regret wanting you dead.”

Billie nods, but her face falls and she’s looking at the floor again. “I have to be alive to be Empress, though.”

Daud pulls her in again, more for himself this time. 

After a minute, Billie leans back, wiping at her eyes. “Father...Father told me I have to pick a Royal Protector. He said he tried to give me time so I could get to know the guards, form an opinion of them, but I’m thirteen. The Spymaster wanted him to appoint me one right away.”

Daud had been told that the Emperor’s Protector could guard them both, that she was safe here. But he had known she would need her own. Rulers picked their Protectors at twelve, so Billie was already a year behind. It just seemed...fast. How was she supposed to know who she could trust? Who wouldn’t take a bribe to deliver the Emperor’s daughter to his enemies or, Outsider forbid, assault her himself? Daud didn’t trust any of them. Daud thinks she was safer on the streets.

“Sounds reasonable.” He brushes a stray curl out of her face. “I can vet your choices, if you want. Do you have any preferences?”

She swallows, looking up at him nervously. “You?” she says in an almost squeaky voice. “You’ll be my Royal Protector, Daud. Won’t you?”

He must have been expecting it on some level, because he’s not shocked. He just leans forward and mumbles against Billie’s forehead. “Of course.”

“Good.” She nods, her face hardening as her stiff, stern princess mask came down. “I’ll tell Father. He gave me a week to decide, but I’ll tell him I made up my mind. He’s not going to say no to me.”

She’s right. The Emperor never said no to her. Argued with her, sure, tried to sway her to his side, but he would never outright deny her anything. Besides letting her have coffee, which was apparently his hill to die on. It was probably a good thing she hadn’t grown up here. He would have spoiled her rotten.

She moves like she’s going to hop down, but Daud grabs onto her wrist. “Wait. I need to talk to you about something.” And Billie looks nervous, so much so that Daud claps his hands around her cheeks. “I’d be honored to be your Protector. And I’ll protect you with my life.” He already did that. “But I can’t be by your side every second of the day. You can’t only rely on me to keep you safe.”

“So what are you saying?” she asks, cocking her head.  

“You liked the fighting lessons I gave you, right?” Daud pushes her hair back from her forehead, and she nods. “I think it’s time we resume your training.”

She breaks into a mischievous grin. “Father would  _ hate  _ that.”

“He can get over it.” Daud smiles. “You weren’t half-bad with a blade before, but by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be the best swordsman in the Isles.”

She actually giggles at that. And Daud isn’t trying to stroke her ego. She is good, incredibly good. She was beating grown men in formal duels within a week of learning the rules. She’d be toast within a minute of a real fight due to her current size of a jellybean, but she’s smart and talented enough to avoid a straight slugging match. And she’s getting taller everyday. She’d get stronger. Better. 

“And I’ll requisition us some pistols,” he continues. “Work on your marksmanship. By the time I’m done with you, no one will be able to touch you.”

“I’ll be the  _ safest  _ Empress there ever was,” she grins.

“You’re fucking right, you will be.” Daud ruffles her hair one last time before getting to his feet. “Also you made me miss lunch. You want to get something to eat?”

“Yeah.” She hops down, and bangs her shoulder against Daud’s side as they wait for the door to raise so they can creep out together. “Thanks, Daud. Really.”

 

* * *

 

Remembering hurts.

But when Daud dozes off, he’s shaken awake by a fear that takes hold in his gut. One that screams at him that Thomas is in danger, that Daud needs to go find him, and even though Thomas is twenty feet away and Daud can hear him breathing if he listens hard enough, he still has to get up and check on him every time before his heart rate slows.

Remembering hurts less.

So Daud gives up on sleep. He tends to the fire, even though Reed had been up here shortly before bed and the stove would burn hot until morning. He needs something to keep his mind occupied, but he doesn’t want to light a lamp and risk waking Thomas.

The paranoia starts setting in, and there’s the urge to leave the attic, to make rounds across the mill. Make sure everyone’s safely in bed, check that all the access points are locked, look for people hiding in the shadows. He knows it won’t really ease his mind, that as soon as he finishes he’ll wonder if he missed something, or if someone broke in while his attention was elsewhere, and he’d start again. The same thing happened at Dunwall Tower, going between Billie and Thomas’s rooms and checking to make sure the doors were locked, checking behind curtains and tapestries and every one of those goddamn windows on the third floor. It never helped, but he couldn’t sleep anyway. He still doesn’t want to leave the attic, because some part of him screams that when he comes back, Thomas will be gone, spirited away again while Daud wasn’t with him.

Daud wishes he drank.

He sits on a broken chair with three legs, far enough away from Thomas’s head that he won’t see Daud upon waking up, but close enough to placate his own nerves. He’d smoke, but the attic has poor ventilation, and Thomas has always been a bit sensitive to cigar smoke.

Thomas sleeps fitfully. Tossing about, his muscles clenching and his face screwed in discomfort. He mumbles, mostly unintelligible, but Daud catches Billie’s name on his lips more than a few times. Occasionally accompanied by a distressed ‘run’ and ‘no’.

_ ‘He’s afraid. He clings to that which is familiar and pretends he isn’t.’ _

Sounds about right.

Hopefully this was just the same thing that happened when Daud took Thomas in, and again when they moved to Dunwall Tower. He would have vivid nightmares, ones that left him crying and unable to sleep alone. Daud had asked one of the Tower’s physicians about it once when it got really bad, one of those kooky philosophers that studied children’s behaviors,  and they told him that Thomas’s brain was doing a purge. That all his bad memories were getting dredged up and tossed away, that the bad dreams were just a side effect. Thomas had been through a lot in his short life, things Daud was not privy to know, but it was just as well if he didn’t have to remember them. The nightmares could be handled.

Thomas was too old now to forget about what he suffered at the hands of Delilah and her cronies, but maybe it would hurt less. Maybe there were details that could slip his attention. Times he was better off not remembering.

_ ‘They tried to bribe him with books and sweets. And got angry when he didn’t play along.’ _

Thomas flops onto his back, grasping at his chest. He asks where Daud is. Jerks and breathes out Billie’s name. Then he relaxes again.

Daud would make Delilah pay for this. Not just for Billie, but for the fear she instilled in Thomas. For turning him into a pawn. There’s no death that can do her justice, but there’s plenty of other things Daud can do with his blade. He’d have to reign in the fury, keep himself from killing her right away. He’d draw it out.

_ ‘We kill without thought or compassion. Our hands have been bloodied. We’re being lead astray by this path you’ve culled for us.’ _

It was for her. And for Thomas. All of it was for them.

He never felt guilt over the people who had to die for him to protect them. That was how the world worked. Some people died. Some didn’t deserve it. But he had to look out for himself, for his two streetrats. If he hadn’t, they’d have been cast under the wheels. Life was a fight. You had to win at all costs.

_ ‘It doesn’t have to be this way.’ _

Yes. It did.

Billie had tried to change the world for the better. She had received a knife to the gut for it.

_ ‘We will carry what was done to us through the end of time. No one asked if we wanted it. But no one asked them either.’ _

Daud sighs. His gaze again shifts to Thomas, sleeping ever-so-slightly more peacefully now.

_ ‘He loves you. Even now, I can feel it.’ _

That was nice. 

_ ‘He’ll hide his fears from everyone except me. He knows where your loyalties lie, but he worries. He wonders how long you can keep this up. How long it will be until you meet someone like yourself.’ _

There was no one like Daud, not now. Even Delilah is no a match for him. He knows, with Billie’s voice in his palm and the thought of Thomas in the back of his head, Daud can do anything. Can kill anyone.

_ ‘Our names are always overshadowed by the whispers that follow them.’ _

Billie Lurk, the Empress thrown to the Void, an offering to appease both the plague and a conniving witch. Daud. Once a name that instilled terror, the urge to safeguard possessions and stay out of back alleys at night. Then in admiration, a man that safeguarded the people’s beloved Empress, and only struck fear in the hearts of those who wished to do her harm. Now her killer, to most of the world. The Crown Killer. That name was cause for trepidation. Horror. Perhaps more so than the name of the Empress’s murderer, now.

_ ‘If you hide from the world long enough, eventually no one remembers you. Then you’re left alone. Living with your choices.’ _

No one would ever forget her.

Daud wants to throw something. Not the Talisman, never that. But something.

People like him and her, they didn’t have choices. They survived. And they dealt with the consequences. There was no point in ruminating on them because there was no way to avoid them. What happened is what had to happen.

_ ‘This city is a den of horrors. I can see it all. A child devoured by rats. A gang descending on a mother with an infant. Your hands, soaked in blood.’ _

“You don’t have to look,” he grunts.

_ “I cannot turn away.’ _

Daud sighs. He pushes back his hair, sweat sticking to his forehead. 

_ ‘It is not too late for you. For us.’ _

“What would you have me do, Billie?” he asks, holding the Talisman up to his face, gripping tightly with both hands. “Name it. I’ll do it. Everything I’ve done is for you.”

_ ‘Father, we are becoming everything I ever fought against.’ _

Daud can’t breathe. Over on his bed, Thomas mumbles some more.

_ ‘Vengeance is a double-sided knife. Anger is a hot coal. It fuels us. We run hot and light the world. But all we are is burning.’ _

Silently, Daud bades Billie to talk about something else. He needs to think, and he needs to hear her voice.

_ ‘My mother had hair like ash, and eyes that followed me like a panther. Hungry, and hateful.’ _

Not what he was asking for, but something. He presses again.

_ ‘Their fates rest in you. On the strength of your hands. And that of your heart.’ _

_ ‘I cannot feel the sun on my face. There is salt water in my veins, an icy fog over my head. I am so, so cold.’ _

Every whisper rebuilds his heart, and every word breaks it. But still, he cannot stop. He watches Thomas and listens to Billie’s confused, dead voice, allowing himself this small comfort and punishing himself all the same.

_ ‘This city is built on the bones of the great ones. I have seen them all, in the mud and under the streets. It all shudders and writhes.’ _

_ ‘No matter how many throats we slit, someone else will just crawl to the top of the pile. Take that as you will.’ _

_ ‘There is hatred and evil at work in my city, and goodness and love here as well. But your sword knows not the difference. It will drown the kindness and cruelty alike in blood.’ _

 

* * *

 

They fall into a familiar, if not comfortable routine over the next few days. Daud trains, either alone or with Galia. Lizzy is still laid up and Thalia bitches whenever Paul steps away from her, so there’s no one else to spar with. He shoots things with his wristbow. When no one’s looking, he Blinks over the roof of the mall and runs laps around Draper’s Ward, learning it like the back of his hand. There’s hardly anyone about now-there’s a camp by the waterfront, filled with what looks like ex-gang members and random citizens. Jerome has mentioned trading with them. But other than that, the district is nearly empty.

He takes Thomas to Trimble. Glares at the man the whole time. There’s nothing they can do for his arm at this point other than give it time. Daud sees Thomas cringe when he picks something up, how he avoids touching things with his injured arm. He writes with the wrong hand now, his letters clumsy in a practiced way. Trimble gives him some medicine for the pain, but it only does so much. Daud worries there’s nerve damage. The Academy might have something to help him, but not until they’re back in Dunwall Tower.

Meanwhile, the ‘bosses’ twiddle around, trying to determine their next move. They couldn’t go after Delilah right away, they told Daud. There were reasons she was able to seize power. They had to find the names of those reasons, remove them from play or else they risked someone else rising up and taking Delilah’s place. Daud wants to point out that they could try as they might, but there was only one Delilah. She was the worst of them all.

Daud placates himself with the idea of Delilah watching as her little empire of lies crumbles and burns. Feeling the supports beneath her feet rot and unable to do a damn thing about it. Daud would just slip her the noose and watch her hang herself.

Thomas and Lydia have taken over a table on the mill floor, pushed into a corner and overflowing with books. He studies with Lydia in the morning and spends his afternoons goofing off with Rose. Thomas was unlike Billie in that he didn’t necessarily have trouble making friends of the same sex, but for some reason his close friends always seemed to be girls.

Though it wasn’t like Daud was in any position to judge. He made friends with children more easily than adults.

Daud takes to sitting in on Thomas’s lessons while he eats, listening to the two talk without really paying attention to their words. And it’s here they sit, finishing up their own lunches while Daud meekly slides into his predetermined seat, when Rose comes over with his plate and darts away before Gerald can bitch at her about taking too long.

“She’s pregnant.” And Thomas says it like it’s the most mundane thing in the world, ripping off another chunk of bread and popping the morsel into his mouth.

Lydia chokes. “Pardon me, what?” She puts her glass down. “ _ Our _ Rose? Did she tell you that?”

Thomas shakes his head. “You can tell by the way she walks. Shifting her balance from side-to-side instead of forward and back.” He mimics the motion with his fingers and takes a sip of water. “And she wears the baggy shirts to hide the bump. There’s plenty of clothes in the mall that would fit her better. She wouldn’t try any on when she helped me pick out new clothes the other day.”

Daud narrows his eyes and watches as Rose stands in front of the kitchen counter, listening to Gerald, before moving into the kitchen. Fuck, he’s right.

“That’s…” Lydia stares at the grain in the wood. “She’s not married, is she?”

“That’s the last thing to be concerned about,” Daud grumbles. Like Lydia was one to judge. Her own sister wasn’t married. “How old is she? She can’t be much older than you, Thomas.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never asked.”

Lydia straightens out her blouse. “Well, that’s some very nice detective work, but it isn’t really  _ proof _ .”

Daud shakes his head. “No, Thomas is usually right about this kind of thing. He’s got a knack for deduction.”

If she had lived, Billie had planned to make him her Spymaster once he was twenty. Thomas would have been a great fit. As it was, those skills would serve him well as Emperor. But still.

“So what, should we do something?” Lydia leans in close. “ _ Say  _ something? Lady Thalia and Zhukov, they should know so they don’t overwork her.”

“Maybe that’s her intention,” Daud says into his glass. Lydia gasps and hits his forearm.

“Daud! That’s a terrible thing to say!”

“I’m just…” Daud puts his glass down. “Does her brother know? There has to be a reason she hasn’t said anything.”

“Shoot, I didn’t even think about that.” Thomas looks troubled for a moment. “Can we just keep this between us then? For the time being?”

Lydia bites her lip. “A woman in my mother’s employ miscarried once. She...there was so much blood.” She blinks, not looking to either one of them. “There are so few children being born now.”

“I’ll talk to her. Just don’t spread rumors.”

She doesn’t look happy about it, but she nods and sips from her tea. “I suppose the anonymity of being here is working in her favor. She can make up a suitable story once the plague breaks.” 

Daud holds back his snarky comments on the state of her priorities. He’s more concerned over who the fuck made her pregnant than what people will say about it.

It’s possible she had a husband. But unlikely. If there was anything Daud liked about Dunwall, it was that kids generally didn’t get married. It was much easier for people, women especially, to find work outside the home, jobs that didn’t look down on young women for either being unmarried or being married and not at home, popping out babies. Most people waited until their twenties to marry, versus out in the sticks where girls were frequently married off as young as fourteen to take advantage of her child-bearing years. But Rose doesn’t wear any rings or necklaces that would indicate she’s married or engaged, and even more telling, she’s never mentioned it.

Still. Lydia was right in that there were almost no new babies in Dunwall. Both infants and expecting mothers were especially susceptible to plague. If it wasn’t the sickness, it was starvation and violence. Even the stress of living in this doomed city did away with most children while they were still shadows in their mother’s bellies. It all just added insult to injury. Along with large swaths of their population dying off, birth levels couldn’t hope to replace the dead. Even if the city survived this plague, there would be an entire generation missing. A scar to remind Dunwall for decades to come what had happened.

There would be one child. Another human being’s survival relying on his success. Another person to protect. Daud should resent it, but he doesn’t. It’s a spark, a promise of new life. Like a dandelion growing from the asphalt. And it gives Daud hope that Dunwall will survive.

The announcement speaker fizzles, and everyone snaps their heads to listen.

**“Attention Dunwall Citizens.** **The Ascending Circle has chosen Teague Martin as the new High Overseer. Let us praise their choice. The Dance of Investiture will take place without delay."**

Everyone quickly returns to their business, barely caring about who held the lofty title. Daud, however, sits there blinking in confusion.

“Why does that name sound familiar?” Thomas says, tapping his pen against his lip.

Daud recovers and reaches for his tea. “He was the Spymaster when your sister was coronated, Thomas.”

“That was the same Martin?” He narrows his eyes. “Is that allowed? For an Overseer to be Spymaster?”

“Guess they would know better than us.”

Daud mulls this over. He hadn’t liked Martin...but he hadn’t  _ disliked  _ him either. He had been the one to find Billie in the slums when all he had to go on was a face that looked vaguely like the Emperor’s. Even Daud had to admit that was an impressive feat. He still held some resentment for how Billie was treated when they were trying to determine her paternity, how roughly she was handled and how nobody gave her any information, just let her stew in confusion and fear. They hadn’t even told her of their suspicions until the Emperor was literally in the lobby of their hotel, waiting to meet her.

But Martin had apologized for the ‘miscommunications’ that occured. He had always been kind and patient with Billie, and he always had a pocket stuffed with candies he’d slip to Thomas when he thought Daud wasn’t looking. He knew it was all a kiss-up act, but as far as kiss-asses went, Martin was far from the worst in Dunwall Tower.

He had resigned from the position two years into Billie’s reign. Daud remembers he hadn’t endorsed Delilah. Billie had listened to other advisors though, and selected her. A decision that had sealed her fate.

A door slams open.

“What’s up, my bitches?!”

Daud rolls his eyes before he even turns to Lizzy. She’s carried in by Jerome, her feet dangling in the air and a newspaper in her hands. Jerome looks both tired and annoyed.

Edgar practically sprints across the room to take Lizzy, who kicks at him in response. “I’m fine. Jerome can plop me down right here.”

“Couldn’t come soon enough.” Jerome dumps Lizzy in her usual chair without a hint of grace, causing her to rub her butt and glare at him. Jerome just shrugs. “You’re the one who insisted on coming.”

“What’s up with that, Liz?” Paul tips back in his chair. “Thought the doc ordered you on bedrest.”

“Well, I’m feeling  _ much  _ better now,” she says, catching Daud’s eye and giving him a wink. Daud just crosses his arms.

Edgar scoffs. “Just last night you couldn’t walk two feet to fetch a new bottle of whiskey.”

“You’re crying in the rain, Wakefield. Get fucked.” Lizzy holds up the newspaper. “No, Jerome got his hands on the latest off the printing press, and I told him I had to be here to show it.”

Lydia has come up besides Daud, mimicking his posture. “The presses are down. There haven’t been any new papers since…” 

She stops, and everyone shifts uncomfortably.

“Since the Empress died.” Daud has to finish her sentence.

“...Yes.”

Daud catches a glimpse of Thomas as he turns around, stares at the wall.

The newspapers have been shut down for well over a year. Not enough workers, and it wasn’t worth the cost in raw materials. Few people were left alive to buy them anyway. If there had been ground-breaking news that couldn’t be covered over the loudspeakers, Billie could have always delegated some of her own staff to write, print, and distribute an edition. There had been a plan in place to do so to give the people some sort of instruction, for when they had the cure that Daud had been sent away to find.

Figures Delilah would utilize that. To let everyone know that Billie was dead and Delilah was in charge. That Daud was at fault for it. Of course that would have been her utmost priority.

Jerome shakes his head. “Like, not publicly. But there’s been underground papers going around. I snagged a copy from some lady selling junk down by the docks. Take a look at this!”

Edgar is the first to snatch it from Lizzy’s hands. He whistles, high and loud. “Shit. This your work?”

“All Daud’s.” Lizzy beams.

Daud rushes to his side. There, taking up half the front page, is a mildly faithful reproduction of Timsh’s murder scene. They got the pattern of his wallpaper wrong, and the angle of his desk is ever so slightly off. There’s shadows falling across where Daud had left Timsh’s body, making it obvious what it’s supposed to be without being overly gory. But it’s bloody enough.

And the words, the words are clear as day.

“Fuck me!” Edgar slaps his knee. “‘The Crown Killer’. I like it! It’s got a nice ring to it.”

“Poetic.” Lydia nods in approval, looking over Daud’s shoulder. “Symbolic. Reminds the world of the woman we’re killing for.”

Paul reaches over and takes the paper from Daud’s numb, still hands.

“Well,  _ that  _ will definitely put fear in the hearts of our enemies,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “But, I dunno, is that really the best way to do it? I mean, this-” he strikes the paper with the back of his hand. “-this has got style, sure. But there’s a difference between making an impression and painting a target on your own back.”

Lizzy snatches the paper back and hits him in the arm with it. “Oh, shove off Paulie, you’re ruining all the fun.”

“Don’t you have someplace to be, pretty boy?” Edgar puts a hand on his hip. “Where’s your mistress? We should see what she thinks of all this.” He cups his hands and bellows in the direction of the main staircase. “THALIA!”

Paul practically vaults across the table to rip Edgar’s hands away from his mouth. “Shhh! I’m hiding!”

“Oh, better hope she doesn’t hear that.” Lizzy laughs. “She haaaaates being away from you.”

“What’s she gonna do, fire me?”

They all titter at that. Thalia Timsh wouldn’t last a day in Dunwall on her own.

“But seriously,” Lizzy says as Paul sits down. “Aren’t you supposed to be with her? That is kind of your job.”

Paul shrugs. “We’re practically in lockdown. The scariest thing in here is Daud.” He points, and Daud instantly feels the need to crumble into himself. “Even if someone got in, his face is a much better deterrent than mine.”

There’s a quip about Daud being offended over that, but Daud’s not listening. He turns back to where Thomas was standing and finds the spot empty.

“But Daud, man, people are spooked.” Jerome brings his attention back to the table. “People are talking. There’s so many rumors floating around that I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Rumors?” Daud raises an eyebrow. Jerome just looks uncomfortable.

“Like I said, there’s a ton. But people are pretty evenly split over whether the Crown Killer is killing for the crown, of if the crown’s the target.”

“Delilah’s wearing no crown,” Daud says flatly. “I’m killing for it.”

“Right, right.” Jerome raises his hands. “I know that. But they wonder if you’re the one behind the Empress’s assassination. Not you-like, the Daud you, but the Crown Killer.”

“So they think the Crown Killer is a conspiracy, not a person.” Lydia nods to herself as she reads. “They don’t suspect Daud is involved in this, do they?”

“A bit, but that theory isn’t too popular. A lot of folk saw the state he was in beforehand. They agree he shouldn’t of been able to get very far. Most people think he just...went off to die on his own.”

Edgar punches him in the arm. “Guess your ragged-ass look paid off.”

Daud shrugs it off. “That’s fine.” He taps the top of the newspaper as Lydia reads. “But we need to make it clear that we’re killing in the Empress’s name. The Crown Killer was born of the Empress’s death, not for it.”

Lydia eyes him over the paper. “Well, of course we need to make it clear that Delilah ordered the assassination, but-”

“But nothing.” Daud slaps his hand on the table. “The Crown Killer wasn’t responsible because  _ I didn’t kill her _ .”

Everyone glances away, unwilling to meet his eye. Lizzy leans back in her chair, making it creak. “Yeah, we  _ know  _ that,” she says, pointedly glaring at anyone who met her eye. “But Delilah herself’s got an alibi. Everyone knows she couldn’t have stuck that blade through the Empress’s heart.”

Billie hadn’t been stabbed in the heart. That would have been merciful. Faster. She had been run through the stomach. Gutted and torn open, left to drown in her own blood. Then drowned properly, because she wasn’t dying fast enough for their liking.

But he’s not going to get into that here, so he just exhales and waves his hand. “I know. That’s why she hired the Crow Queen to do it.”

There’s a crash from the kitchen, and Gerald immediately lets loose a string of verbal abuse aimed at Rose. People turn to the commotion, but lose interest after a moment.

“Dude, seriously?” Jerome’s eyes are wide, his body still tilted ever so slightly away from Daud. “Shit, is that why she’s gone awol?”

Lydia nods, tapping her finger against her chin. “That fits. She’s supposedly Marked. She would be one of the only people in Dunwall capable of carrying out such a murder without leaving a trace.”

“But wouldn’t, like, Thomas know it was her?” Edgar still eyes Daud suspiciously, who shakes his head.

“Thomas was knocked out almost immediately after he taken away. He doesn’t remember anything.” Which was true. From what Thomas had described, it sounded like he had been sleep-darted and kept unconscious while he was handed over to Timsh. He had recounted it to Daud one night, after a round of nightmares woke them both up. It has been nothing but pure confusion from Thomas’s standpoint. He was stabbed, watched his sister be assassinated, and was promptly transversed away. He had screamed and struggled as his captors tried to tie him up, then he felt a prick at his neck and the next thing he was aware of was the ceiling in Timsh’s little prison. He had been too overwhelmed- _ scared _ -to really notice anything outside of that.

Edgar clearly doesn’t buy it. “How...convenient.”

Daud’s not playing this game now. He shakes his head and peers over Lizzy’s shoulder, who now has the newspaper and is thumbing through it. “What else does it say about us?”

“Mmm.” She doesn’t look up. “Not much else, but they have connected the Crown Killer to Abele’s murder. Also to a few others, so that doesn’t leave me too impressed with their investigation skills.”

“Including Sokolov’s kidnapping!” Jerome says brightly.

Lizzy throws her hands in the air. “I know! Like, where the fuck did they make that connection? That was way back when the Empress died!” She returns to the newspaper and flips the page. “That’s about it for us, but there’s some more shit on the Butcher. ‘Parently Horace Millhouse got his face ripped off.” She makes a face. “Literally.”

The picture is startlingly graphic. Probably because it wasn’t front-page, less likely to shock people as they passed by. Right, because Daud made the front page instead of this.

“Long as they don’t confuse us for this monster, I’m cool,” Lizzy mutters. Daud is inclined to agree. He has enough blood on his hands that he shouldn’t really be able to talk, but the Butcher was...something else. Vicious. A par above the normal assassin or bloodthirsty killer.

Something about it deeply unsettled Daud. Left an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, in a way that was unlike anything he felt while investigating other criminals for Billie. There were plenty of disgusting,  morally reprehensible people, but Daud never felt...really anything when dealing with them. Anger, if they had made his Empress a target, but that was it. The Butcher was different.

The loudspeaker crackles to life so suddenly that everyone jumps.

**“Attention,”**

It yells, as it always does.

**“Dunwall Tower has been assaulted. Rebels have bombed the carriage station, vandalized the water lock, and attempted to assassinate our esteemed Lady Regent.”**

No. No, fuck, this isn't happening. Delilah was Daud’s. He would kill her. No one was taking that away from him.

**“Her assailants have been swiftly executed at the hands of her security force. Citizens will be overjoyed to know that Lady Delilah Kaldwin was not harmed, and in fact invites any would-be assassins to ‘come and try harder.’**

Overjoyed. Right. Well, Daud was happy, at least.

**“The rebels have been identified as a fringe group of Overseers. High Overseer Martin has assured that this small group does not represent the views of the Abbey of the Everyman and has such expelled the dissenters as heretics. Several former Overseers have escaped the scene and are now wanted for high treason and attempted regicide. The wanted men are as follows: Jameson Lanchester, Yul Khulan, Nikola Massey, Milton Morley, Liam Byrne, and Ariel Dowling. Be advised that these individuals are considered armed and dangerous, and it is a capital punishment to aid them. Anyone who sees these criminals are required to report to the City Watch immediately.”**

There’s a burst of static, and the speaker goes quiet. The group stares at each other for a long moment, as if trying to process the information.

“Well,” Edgar says. “Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daud under his breath: "conceal, don't feel, don't let them know..." For real, Corvo may not have handled Jessamine's death with utmost grace, but for the sake of Emily he did handle it. Daud's not handling Billie's. Like, at all.
> 
> Anyway, some notes:
> 
> Nobody ever depicts Billie with curly hair! Bunch of cowards, I say. I'll give it a pass in DH2 because her hair was short and was probably wet a lot. But in KoD, when she takes her mask off and her hair's long and straight, not even pulled back? I mean, I have a theory that the air in Dunwall is absolutely saturated with whale oil, so maybe her hair was just greasy af, but still. One of the monologue cutscenes in Doto makes it look like Billie had some waves to her hair, so we're running with that. Pre-royal Billie had a hairstyle similar to Rue's in The Hunger Games. After her whole Princess Diaries makeover, (she 100% broke somebody's brush too) I imagine she would look more like Tiana.
> 
> You know that scene where Corvo goes to say good night to Emily and she's having a nightmare? And all you can do is watch while Callista asks you to keep quiet and ushers you out? I imagine all Corvo wanted to do was to comfort her, be the dad she needed instead of just the bodyguard he was supposed to be. So I took pity on Thomas. He's too old to be living with his tutor anyway, (not that Lydia would be happy with that arrangement-she's been humbled a bit, but she still has standards) but I let him stay with his da(u)d. Because fuck the gossips.
> 
> I tried to recreate Billie's shrine. Daud will have one at the beginning of Brigmore Witches if he killed Billie in KoD, regardless of chaos. And that genuinely hurts me. Not really the same in this AU because Billie didn't have a mask and sword and shit, and even if she did it's not like Daud could get them back at this point. But it's something. Daud says he's not sentimental, but actions speak louder than words.
> 
> This might be overly picky, but Jessamine's secret room is really horrible as a secret room. It's at the corner of two long, wide hallways where *everyone* can see, so there's no way people didn't know about it. This has bothered me since the first time I played that mission. That wasn't her secret room, that was the 'the Empress is dicking down her Royal Protector in there so talk to her later' room.
> 
> I feel like I made Billie too much of a little bitch. She's like thirteen though, so give her a break. She's allowed to blubber a bit.
> 
> There are no newspapers in DH1, unless I'm forgetting something, despite newspapers 100% being a thing long before that time period. Realistically, though, there probably *wouldn't* be papers during something like the Rat Plague. The loudspeaker announcements would replace them. Underground papers have always existed though, and rebellions are never put out. Also idk if Overseers can hold office? But let's be real, even if Overseers couldn't become Spymaster, Martin would find a way.
> 
> Next chapter will have witchiness and shit that actually has to do with the actual plot.


	10. Meat, Death, Bones and Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud dads everything under thirty. And spies on everyone. This chapter is literally labeled 'Daud creeps' in my outline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features some of the other Whalers. In this AU, all the Whalers were guards stationed at Dunwall Tower. They're not really Daud's kids here; they're more like the children of third cousins that he's mildly fond of.
> 
> Warning for, uhhh, domestic violence, references to rape of a minor, teen pregnancy, and cannabis.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving if you're American. If you're not, I hope you have a happy regular-ass Thursday.

After the announcement, Zhukov and Galia immediately rushed off to meet with their spies at Dunwall Tower. To which Daud thought, ‘We have spies at Dunwall Tower?’

Quinn Fleet, for one, was not only stationed at Dunwall Tower and therefore in Delilah’s warpath everyday, but was funneling information back to her sister and by extension, their conspiracy. Daud appreciates it, though he worries for her safety. He liked Quinn. And to top it off, she was one of the few women Billie actually got along with. He didn’t want to see her hurt.

Most of Billie’s guard and staff had jumped ship when Delilah took over, some out of disgust over Daud’s accusal, but most just to save their own necks. Delilah was quick to root out those who remained loyal to the old Empress. And almost everyone fell victim to her suspicions, unfounded or not.

She had Dimitri burned alive, Brendan and Finn drowned. One night she summoned Patrick to her studio. Nobody knew exactly what happened to him. Misha had been hauled out to face death by firing squad, but on the way to the targeting range she had twisted out of her captors grasp and vaulted over the Tower wall, jumped into the ocean. She broke both her legs and would likely never walk without assistance again, but she survived to tell the story. Supposedly Fisher was taking care of her now, their exact location kept secret.

There were other names given, maids and cooks and tutors. Daud noted, thankfully, that Thomas’s last governess had fled to the countryside the moment Delilah took power and was therefore spared the purge. Thomas had grown out of a need for a governess five years ago, but Billie had kept her on to teach the other children at Dunwall Tower. (A perk of working for the Crown, she had spun it, when her advisors ridiculed the program. Work at Dunwall Tower, food and lodging provided for and your kids get a free education. Billie never had an issue with unloyal servants) Thomas had a rash of bad governesses himself, but he had the last one for nearly three years and was calling her his aunt by the end. He’s glad she escaped in time. Daud had liked her, and Thomas didn’t need another tragedy weighing on him.

Even with Delilah’s murder spree, there were still a few brave souls willing to work undercover. Vladko and Leonid both still worked in the Tower proper, alongside Quinn. Thorpe and Yuri were stationed outside the gates. Akila and Marco were overseeing dead counters, and apparently Julian doing some of his own assassin work on the side while working in the Watch, taking out Delilah supporters.

The love for Billie was alive and well.

Galia came back that night haggard and defeated, a worried look in her sunken eyes. Thalia had called an emergency meeting, one that Thomas was explicitly not to know about. Lydia creatively got rid of him by asking him and Rose to take Reed outside to play, as it was such a nice evening, and shouldn’t a boy his age be playing instead of working all the time? Daud rolled his eyes and fist-bumped her under the table, though it seemed to startle her more than anything.

Daud slides into his usual seat next to Lizzy, who hasn’t moved since Jerome first dumped her there. Everyone else takes their place, with Galia sitting instead at the head of the table instead of the seat next to Daud.

“Zhukov is still out doing reconnaissance,” Galia says, rubbing her temples. “I-”

Paul scoffs. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? He’s out at all hours doing Outsider-knows-fuck, do you even know where he is?”

“No.” Galia slams her palms down on the table. “No, I do _not_ know where Zhukov is, but I trust he knows what he’s looking for.”

“And...what is that exactly?” Lizzy cocks her head. “We found the Emperor. I was under the impression that was the whole point of this thing.”

Daud breathes in slowly. “Is there something actually important we gathered here to discuss?” He shifts his gaze over to Thalia. “And is there a reason Thomas, the person who will soon be _ruling an Empire_ , was not allowed to sit in?”

Thalia flips her hand as if to dismiss him. “The young lord has been through so much lately. William thinks it best if we avoid stressing him out for the time being.”

Daud turns to Lizzy and whispers. “Who?”

She rolls her eyes. “Trimble,” she spits.

Ah.

Lydia is already laying the back of her hand over her forehead. “May we please start the meeting already? I have a terrible headache and would like to retire soon.”

“Alright, princess,” Galia says in a snippy tone. Then she clasps her hands together and sets them on the table. “Like I was _saying_ , I went out to talk with some of our spies. Leonid was even able to sneak me in to see some of the damage. It’s…” she pauses to consider her next words. “It was bad. This was a high scale assault, and a _lot_ of Overseers are dead.”

“No real loss there,” Edgar snorts.

Lizzy leans forward. “How many are we talking here, Blondie?”

“Several dozen. Fifty, at the absolute least.” There’s the sound of everyone sucking in air through their teeth.

“Shiiiit.”

The door opens and Jerome comes meekly trailing in, his hands shoved into his coat pockets. Paul wads up a piece of paper and throws it at him.

“Where the fuck were you? And where’s Dress-dude?”

“I have an actual job, Paulson. I was busy.” He jerks his thumb behind him. “The Dressmaker’s out playing with the kids. Figured nobody would mind. He usually doesn’t contribute much to these meetings.”

“Dude, that’s not even my name. It’s not short for anything.”

Lizzy smacks Jerome’s arm as he sits down. “Thanks a lot, it was just me and Daud on this side of the table. Made it look like we smell or something.”

“You smell like rotten fish, Lizzy,” Daud says as he sips his tea.

 _“Anyway,”_ Galia exhales. The door opens again and she throws up her hands.

“Apologies. Nobody bothered to inform me we were having a meeting.” Trimble pats Thalia’s head as he comes up behind her, then casting a disapproving glare at Lizzy. She shoots him the finger.

“That’s because you never bother to come.”

Trimble stops before Galia’s chair, fixing her with an intense stare that has her drop her jaw. Then, muttering something under her breath, Galia shifts out of the chair and into her usual seat, as Trimble takes the head.

Daud has to scoot his chair to make room for her, and immediately scrunches his shoulders up. His elbows bump against the two ladies on both sides of him. He suddenly feels too big for his chair.

“Alright,” Trimble says as he gets settled. “You may proceed. What did I miss?”

“I went out,” Galia says through gritted teeth. “Checked on the situation at Dunwall Tower. A fuck-ton of Overseers died.”

“That’s a cause for concern, though.” Lydia elegantly lays her hands on the table. “The number you quoted is far too high to be considered ‘a fringe group’. Especially when you consider the six that escaped. A group that large would never be able to keep the attack a secret.”

“Not to mention not everyone in on it would be staging the assault,” Paul says. “At least a few people would be left behind to do damage control. Probably more.”

Galia nods grimly. “That’s what I kept hearing. There were too many, and they had way too much firepower for it to be a renegade group. They completely sabotaged the water lock-that thing is _not_ going to be working any time soon. And part of the garden, which I think infuriated the Regent more.”

Daud thinks on the explosives and weapons in Holger Square. So his hunch was right. They were going to war.

He just didn’t think they’d be going to war against _Delilah._

“So it was an Abbey decision.” Lizzy nods as she sips from her own tea. “High Overseer Martin just threw them under the bus when their little assassination plan didn’t go as planned.”

“I don’t know how much you can really blame on Martin,” Jerome says as he rubs his eye. “He became High Overseer literally an hour before this happened. And the Ass-End Circle or whatever in charge of choosing the new High Overseer, they were probably too busy with that to be planning rebellions.”

“But the rest of the Overseers are guilty as fuck,” Edgar says proudly.

Trimble holds his fingers to his mouth. “That doesn’t make any sense, though. The Regent has given them free reign while they enforce martial law. The Overseers love power. Why would they want to kill her?”

“Oh, probably because Delilah is a witch,” Lizzy says nonchalantly, and immediately takes a long drink of her tea in order to give everyone the proper time to dramatically gasp.

“What?” Thalia holds her hand to her heart. “That’s-don’t joke about that, Miss Stride, that’s not something-”

“Overseers already tried to kill her, how much worse can it get?” Lizzy pours herself another cup and dumps a clump of sugar in. Lydia straightens out her collar.

“I’m not surprised. There have been rumors for _years,_ about bonecharm usage and putting spells on men-” She leans forward, dropping her aloof act. “But do you have proof? Is she actually Marked by the Outsider?”

Daud instinctively lays his right hand over his left. Lizzy just shrugs and begins vigorously stirring her sugar in. “Don’t know about a Mark, but Daud and I talked to a creepy statue she possessed at Thalia’s uncle’s place.”

“What?!” Galia turns to him with wide, frightened eyes. “Daud! She saw you?”

“No, sorry.” Lizzy takes a drink and makes a face. “I talked to her. Kept the mask on. Daud peeped from outside the door like the creep he is.” She pushes her teacup to Jerome’s place. “Here, you drink this. Way too fucking sweet, if you ask me.”

Thalia looks like she might spontaneously faint, but unfortunately she doesn’t. “You mean to tell me,” she says, her face white. “That statue-the one on the top floor? That’s _her?”_ She buries her face in her hand. “By the Void.”

Edgar glares at her. “You didn’t talk about, like, _this,_ ” He holds out his arms as if to motion to the table. “-in front of her, did you? Because I swear on the Outsider’s ass, Thalia-”

She shakes her head, fingers still covering her eyes. “No, I-”

Paul takes a bite of an apple he’s seemed to produce from thin air. “She fucked a guy in front of it once.”

“Paul!”

“I’m just saying.” He shrugs.

Thalia finally lowers her hands and shakes her head. “It’s not that, it’s just... _creepy.”_

“Oh, very.” Lizzy examines her broken, dirty nails. “By the way, I told her Daud was dead, so at least she’ll be looking for his corpse now instead of him. So nobody kill him and dump his body in the sewer for the next few days, mmmkay?”

“Why do we need to put a time limit on that?” Daud raises his hand. “Why can’t that just be a permanent thing?”

“So the details are working themselves out,” Trimble derails, scratching at a notebook Daud hadn’t seen him produce.

Great, he was one of _those_ people. Daud hated people who fucking took notes during regular-ass conversation. Well, Billie had to have a scribe take notes for her most of the time, but that was different. Her thoughts were actually important.

“Well, we have a motive, at least.” Lydia shrugs. “It’s...very concerning that the Abbey would so brazenly attack the Regent. Especially during a period of interregnum such as this.” She taps her lip thoughtfully. “Unseating the Regent without a known ruler would cause chaos in the best of conditions. And Dunwall is far from the best of conditions.”

Lizzy shrugs, looking nonplussed. “Well, we know they don’t got a spare heir tucked under their skirts. Because we got him.”

“Yes. And that speaks magnitudes of how desperate the Abbey must be.” Lydia purses her lips.

Edgar stretches and gets to his feet. “Well, it also says oodles about how incompetent they are as a fighting force, if fifty of them couldn’t take out one witch.”

“You tell that to all our dead men and women in the water, Wakefield.” Lizzy takes an angry sip of a brown bottle she produces from her pocket. Considering how tight she wears her pants, Daud has no idea how she fit it in.

“That actually brings me to my second point.” And Galia looks nervous now, waiting for Lizzy to glare at Edgar hard enough to bring his ass back down to his chair, grumbling all the way. “The attack...should have worked. Leonid was stationed on top of the Tower, and he watched the whole thing through his spyglass. Talked about...women, screaming men to death. Overseers shooting Delilah’s attendants, only to have their bullets turn into bloodflies.”

Daud suppresses a shudder at the mention of bloodflies.

“I thought he was just in shock,” Galia continued. “But if Delilah’s truly a witch, it makes sense. All those women she brought on, they must be her coven.” She runs one finger over her smooth, rounded nails, painted soft pink. “Delilah herself was apparently batting away grenades with a badminton racket.”

Delilah and Billie used to play badminton with each other frequently. Billie didn’t particularly like the sport itself-it was something noblewomen were _supposed_ to enjoy, so she took what pleasure she could in hitting things and wearing shirts that didn’t come down to her wrists. She was stronger than most of her opponents, but Delilah was one person she didn’t beat on a regular basis. They were weirdly competitive about it. Daud never played much attention to the game itself-he watched because it was his job, but he wasn’t keeping score.

“Badass. Too bad she’s a bitch,” Paul snorts.

“Very badass. But it puts a hitch in our plans.” Galia bites her lip. “Delilah might be harder to kill than we anticipated, Daud.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Daud says without emotion. “I’ll find some way to kill her.”

If she’s hard to kill, all the better. He can take more time with it. Make her suffer for it. Anticipate. She’ll have time to be afraid.

“So what’s our next move?” Lizzy thunks her elbow down on the table, aiming her pointed look at Trimble, who is still scribbling away in his notebook. He looks up after a minute, no doubt feeling the heat of eight stares on his balding head.

“What?”

“What’s our next move?” Lizzy repeats. “You know, since you seem to wanna be in charge and everything.”

“Oh, no.” Trimble waves her off and resumes writing. “I’m just here to observe for now. Gather thoughts.”

“Well aren’t you fucking useless.” Lizzy snarls.

Trimble looks like he’s about to retort, but Lydia speaks up before he has the ability. “I think this all poses an interesting question, moving forward with our operation. Does Delilah’s magic come from her coven, or does her coven draw power from her?”

“That’s a good question, Lids.” Paul rubs at his eye. “Gails, can we put a spy in her coven? Is that even a thing that’s possible?”

“I don’t know.” Galia stares at the wood grains. Daud slams down his teacup with a little more force than necessary.

“No. Even if we could pull it off, it’s too dangerous for whoever we plant.” He shakes his head. “Finding a turncoat would be ideal, someone who wants out and is willing to spill Delilah’s secrets. But we’d have to be careful that they’re not playing us either.” He focuses on the chip in his teacup, the coffee stain on the rim. “Reed decoded the entirety of Abele’s dossiers, right?”

Galia blinks. “Most of them. What he didn’t finish Jerome and I can use his key to translate.”

“We can what now?” Jerome jerks awake.

“Good, good.” Daud tosses back the last of his tea, burning the edge of his tongue. “There might be answers there. They might use codenames, but it’ll give us more than what we have now.”

Galia smiles. “Sounds like a solid plan, boss.”

Daud settles back in his seat as Jerome whips his head around. “ _What’s_ the plan? Guys, what’s going on?”

“Okay, so Thalia, Edgar, Zhukov and I will comb through the dossiers, see if we can learn anything about Delilah’s coven.” Galia’s back is straight, proper, and her expression nearly perky again. “We’ll call on your help if we need it, Lydia. Jerome, keep an ear out for news in your circles. If you hear anything about magic or witchcraft bring it straight to us, even if it sounds inconsequential.”

“O...kay?”

“Lizzy, your job is to rest up and not injure yourself further,” Galia continues, craning her neck to see her behind Daud’s back. “Daud, I guess...just keep doing what you’re doing?” She shrugs. “I feel weird giving you orders.”

“I’m not the Royal Protector right now,” he grunts. “I’m not your boss.”

“Right, well then...just keep being a badass, I guess.”

Jerome gets up and yawns, stretches his arms over his head. Lizzy makes grabby motions with her hands in his direction. “Take thee princess to bed, I command you!”

“I’m gonna throw you off the roof,” Jerome grumbles, but he does scoop Lizzy up in his arms.

Daud watches in mild amusement, hiding his smirk behind his empty teacup. Lydia rolls her eyes and gets to her feet, waggling her eyebrows at Daud over the table. “Good night, you strange creatures.”

 

* * *

 

Daud settles into bed feeling the closest he’s come to content in a long while, listening to the crackling of his fire and imagining all the different ways he can kill Delilah’s witches. He drifts off to sleep with pleasantly little tossing and turning.

The next thing he sees is his sturdy, expensive boots against the floor of the pavilion.

“Your hair is so difficult…” Thomas complains. Daud looks up to see him with his hands buried in Billie’s updo, trying to pin up her hair.

He’s back in Dunwall Tower. Back on _that day_.

It’s not unusual for him to dream about it. Fuck, in Coldridge it was a regular installation in his nightmares. But he’s...he’s remembering Coldridge. He remembers the conspiracy, killing Abele, rescuing Thomas. He remembers being Marked by the Outsider, as surely as he can feel the Mark simmer over his flesh. He remembers everything.

And he remembers what happens next.

Daud looks towards the two, the Empress and her little brother. Thomas is still yammering away about plague-fighting methods. Daud’s been dropped in earlier, maybe two minutes before the assassins show up. Or maybe they’re watching them now, waiting for an opening.

Either way, Daud doesn’t have time to waste thinking about it.

Billie turns to him, her mouth open with some bullshit about his party on her tongue-and oh, Daud wants to melt at the sight of her. Regal, beautiful, _alive._ Her dark skin flushed with blood, her eyes bright and still sitting in her skull where they belong. Her stomach lining intact. Her smile drops when she sees his expression, her brown, glossy lipstick shimmering ever so slightly as the afternoon sunlight hits her face. “Daud? Is something wrong?”

He opens his mouth, but what was there to say? Instead he pushes his emotions down, and darts forward.

Thomas yelps as Daud roughly grabs him by the elbow. Daud hadn’t realized how much weight Thomas had lost-his stomach and arms are padded where they were bony when Daud saw him hours before, and there’s weight in his face that’s disappeared in the months between this and the present. Perhaps that’s why Thomas looks so much older to him now. Thomas uses Daud’s shoulder to steady himself-fuck, he’s got two working arms again-and Daud reaches his other hand out to wrap around Billie’s upper arm.

“We have to go. _Now._ ”

Billie doesn’t question it. She knows the drill. She believes Daud knows best. She _trusts_ Daud, trusts Daud’s judgement, trusts him to keep her safe. So she doesn’t complain about Daud manhandling her, doesn’t ask why they need to retreat. She just does as he tells her.

Daud’s not stupid enough to think that he’s actually gone back in time. That the Outsider is giving him another chance. He knows this is a dream. But he has knowledge this time, control. He can change things this time. Stop it. He’s _not_ watching her die again.

And on the slight chance that this is the Outsider’s idea of a test, see if he’s worthy of a do-over, worthy of _saving_ her, then fuck, he’s going to pass.

He’s going to save Billie. Save them both.

The assassins would close in soon, and while Daud has no doubt he can take the Crow Queen, he’s still susceptible to her Rat King’s mind control attack, or whatever the fuck it was. That would leave him useless, and Billie-unMarked, armed with a single tiny knife Billie-to defend herself against the Crow Queen’s magic. It’s too late to give her the Bond-he doesn’t know if he even can, in a dream-but he can put up another wall of defense when he inevitably falls.

Delilah had sent the guards away. No doubt to ensure there were no witnesses, but having others present would counter her assassins in another way. Daud highly doubted that the Rat King could exert control over the minds of several people.

It’s taking too long to get down the steps. Daud still has Thomas’s arm in his grip, and he reaches out and wraps his right arm around her waist, pulling her in before Blinking all three of them forward.

“What the fuck-! Daud!”

Very Un-Empress-like. Any other time, Daud would have teased her for cursing like that where others might hear them. Now he just shakes his head, pushes on her back.

“Just go! Move, move!”

She’s rarely this good at listening. Usually she’d roll her eyes whenever he gave her an order, demanded to know the whys, jokingly reprimanded him for daring to boss the Empress around. But with her life on the line, she knows to shut up and listen. Her feet speed up and she scurries in the direction Daud pushes her, some of her braids coming loose where Thomas had been trying to pin up her hair when Daud yanked him away.

Thomas, who has never been good at knowing when to stop questioning things. Thomas stops and stares at Daud. Completely dazed, and still has to be pulled along. “How…”

“We need to _go,_ Thomas,” Daud hisses through clenched teeth, ushering him through the gates behind his sister.

Rulfio is standing off to the side, his uniform shirt untucked at one hip and his hand in his pocket. He drops his cigarette as they approach, snapping to attention.

“Empress Billie! Is something the matter?”

He regards her nervously, which strikes Daus as odd as Billie and Rulfio got along quite well. Daud thinks he remembers something about him quitting smoking, but he can’t be too sure. It didn’t matter right now anyway. It _couldn’t_ matter.

“Where’s the rest of the guard?” Daud barks. Rulfio turns his head towards the front gate, and Daud waves his hands frantically. “No, don’t get them! Stay here!”

“Why?” Rulfio turns back, confusion written across his face. Daud hadn’t noticed how long his hair had grown, back when this actually happened. His box braids nearly reach his chin, and they bang across his cheek whenever he turns his head. Billie used to plait her hair like that, before she moved to Dunwall Tower and wasn’t allowed to anymore. Thomas took such joy in messing with her braids and making them bounce.

Daud shakes his head. He takes out his pistol and fires it once, into the air. Then he turns to Thomas and shoves the gun into his hands. “Give your sister your sword. Be ready.”

Thomas meekly nods and hands the blade off to Billie, who looks at Daud perplexed but determined. This would work better. Billie knew how to fight with her fists, but she was an exceptionally talented swordswoman, one of the best. Protocol dictated that the Empress couldn’t carry weapons on her person, but fuck it, she could wield a sword and protect herself better than ten Tower guards who were allowed to carry. Thomas knew how to shoot a gun. Protecting himself with one would be easier than a sword.

The assassins descend as a round of footsteps come dashing up the steps, but there’s a shout and no guards appear at the gate. Thomas backs himself into a corner, brandishing his pistol, and Rulfio instinctively moves to cover him. Daud draws his blade.

Daud and Billie fight back to back, covering each other, both perfectly in sync. The lower Cardinals, they were never much of a threat. They disappear upon injury, which would make killing them difficult, but Daud only cares about getting them away from Billie. It works well enough, and soon the wave disperses.

Billie huffs and turns around. “Is that it? Is there more?”

Still panting, Daud nods and turns to her. Her face is more annoyed than anything else, and her pristine white blouse is once again stained with blood-though it doesn’t belong to her this time.

There’s a corpse at her feet. She’s somehow managed to behead one of the Cardinals. Daud blinks in surprise, and resists the urge to reach out and ruffle her hair, praise her. Because there will be more. He knows what’s coming.

“Get Thomas inside.” Daud motions to Rulfio. He’d have to get Billie inside too. The assassins could very well strike in there too, and they certainly will, but there would be less angles. Fewer places to hide and attack her from.

He can see Luca and his lady friend rushing over, but he pays it little mind. Luca’s worse than useless and he’s dead anyway, so Daud can deal with him later. He steps over to the gate and yells again for the guards. This time Misha, Fisher, and Kieron come tearing up the steps, red-faced and out of breath.

“Sorry, Lady Kaldwin...drill, she said…” Fisher puffs. Misha steps forward, straightening her uniform out on instinct.

“Lady Billie! What happened?!”

Billie holds up a hand. “I’m fine. Bit of a witch problem. I took care of it.”

Daud shakes his head and grabs her shoulder. “There’s more. I need to get you inside.”

Now with the others here, the Rat King will have to choose who to take out of the equation. Worst case scenario he’ll still pick Daud, but even the Crow Queen shouldn’t be able to take on three guards and the Empress herself. Not before the Rat King’s power wears off. No magical ability could be maintained indefinitely. Then Daud can take care of them both.

There’s a flash of blue in Daud’s peripherals, and he snaps his head to the side. The Rat King stands on a ledge, his long coat billowing around him. His skull mask, with the lopsided jaw and the stitched mouth, the empty eye sockets staring dead-on at Billie.

Daud pushes her behind him and brandishes his sword, yells for the guards to swarm around Billie. The Rat King flashes forward, and Daud counters his sword before he even registers it swinging towards him. The King stumbles back, and Daud goes to put his own blade through his chest.

The Rat King, however, extends his arm and swipes it to the side. Suddenly Daud is knocked back by a terrible gust of wind, landing on his back maybe ten feet away. He swiftly pushes himself to his feet, intending on Blinking back, witnesses be damned. But then there’s arms-strong, too strong-sliding under his armpits, pulling his hands back, a foot on the underside of his knee keeping him kneeling in the dirt.

A hand digs into his hair, wrenching his head back. A panting, strangely similar to a wolfhound’s, in his left ear. And at his right, he hears Luca’s disgusting, lying voice ring out.

“Kill her, Corvo! Kill that bitch!”

Misha, Fisher, and Kieron hold up their weapons and gather in front of Billie, who herself is brandishing a blade still stained with Black Cardinal blood. Behind them, the gate bursts open yet again and more guards flood in, but more assassins appear and keep them from advancing.

The Rat King stares at Billie’s rag-tag group of protectors, all ready to do battle, to spill blood for their Empress. Then the Rat King raises his arm and pulls his elbow down. And suddenly Kieron’s head is gone. Misha’s hand reaches to her gushing throat, already falling to her knees. Fisher has a sword through his chest, and the Rat King calmly extracts it from his back before turning to Billie.

Billie somehow manages to duck as the Rat King Blinks forward and avoids the swipe of his blade. She stumbles forward, blade still clutched in one hand, and her other hits the ground to catch her fall. She looks up, looks around wildly. Looking for him.

Daud screams at her. Tries to tell her to run, to go hide. To forget about Daud and get herself to safety. All this is swallowed up when a hand comes down to his jaw and holds it closed with a force he didn’t know was possible.

The guards advance, still fighting off Cardinals as they step over the bodies of their comrades, as they close in on the Rat King, as they swarm around their Empress. Billie meets Daud’s stare, and for the first time in so long, there’s fear in her eyes.

And then her eyes go...blank. Glassy. She straightens up, drops her sword. And without a hint of ceremony, she turns and begins walking away.

Some of the guards yell to her, but they’re too busy fighting off this wave of Cardinals to follow her, or to even notice that the Rat King himself has mysteriously disappeared into thin air. Billie walks along, her steps awkwardly uniform and even, her gaze straight ahead. Her feet stop maybe fifteen feet in front of the steps that lead up to the Tower entrance. And the Crow Queen materializes on the steps.

Billie’s boots shift, and the Empress turns to face the Queen. The Crow Queen reaches into her jacket and pulls out a long, silver pistol, puts her finger on the trigger. She takes aim. And then she nods her head.

In a flash of light, the Rat King appears behind Billie, as if presenting her to his Queen. Billie stumbles forward, her hand going to her stomach on instinct.

“Wha...what…” She puts one boot out to steady herself, leaning over at the waist as she tries to gather her bearings. But then she raises her head. Sees the Queen. And she instinctively pulls herself up to her full height.

The Crow Queen’s gun goes off just as Daud breaks free.

He runs. He forgets he can Blink, that he could catch her before she even hits the ground. He pays no attention to assassins, to the guards. Nobody else exists. He can see nothing but Billie Billie _Billie_ ** _Billie_** _._

Red is already crawling across her blouse, blooming from a single hole in the left side of her chest. Her arms splay at odd angles, and a stray braid falls across her nose.

Daud brushes her hair away from her face. The light has already gone out of her eyes. And when he picks her up her neck lolls back at an impossible angle, and he has to put his hand at the back of her head to steady it, because she won’t be able to breathe that way. He cradles her to his chest and presses his hand against her wound, pressing down, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to stop the life from flowing out of her. He’s here again, with her blood on his hands, he failed and Billie paid the price, he failed her _he failed her he_ **_failed-_ **

 

* * *

 

“Daud!”

There’s a face, and it’s not Billie’s so Daud’s hands immediately fly up to wrap around their neck. He bolts up, sliding one foot onto the floor as he squeezes and pushes the person away from him.

Then he realizes it’s Thomas.

Daud snatches his hands away. Thomas drops to a knee, gasping in a horrible way as he reaches up to touch his throat. Daud scrambles back on the bed, as far away from Thomas as he can go.

“Thomas!” It comes off more of an accusing yell than one of surprise. “I didn’t-fuck, are you hurt?”

Thomas coughs and clears his throat. “I’m fine,” but his voice is raspy.

Daud shakes his head and scoots to the side of the bed again. “Shit. Are you okay?”

“I just said, _I’m fine.”_

Thomas pushes himself up. There’s a candle on Daud’s bedside table, and through this light he can see Thomas’s throat move as he swallows, the bones in his face and the absence of the cherub cheeks he’s had for so long.

“You were thrashing about,” Thomas says, rubbing his throat. “I tried yelling at you. You wouldn’t wake up until I shook you.”

Daud runs a hand through his hair. “ _Do not_ touch me while I’m sleeping. _Ever.”_

“I get it.” Thomas grabs his candle. “I was just trying to keep you from hurting yourself. Good night.”

“Thomas, wait.” Daud presses two fingers against his eyelids. “I’m _sorry.”_

Thomas hesitates. Then he puts the candle back down, and slides himself onto Daud’s bed.

“It’s okay,” he tries to say, but Daud shakes his head.

“No, it’s _not_ okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Daud just strangled Thomas and now he’s here trying to play therapist for him. The Empire didn’t deserve this boy.

“You always helped me with my nightmares,” Thomas continues, letting a small smile show. “So I can return the favor.”

Daud laughs bitterly at that. “Thomas, you do not want to know what’s going on in my head right now.”

“Was it about Billie?”

He goes quiet. Thomas reaches out and takes his hand. “I’ve been writing her letters. Burn them as soon as they’re done, but I can say what I want to her. Used to write to you too, but I don’t need to do that anymore.” He cocks his head. “Maybe that might help?”

Daud doesn’t say anything. Eventually, though, he brings Thomas’s hand to his mouth and kisses the inside of his wrist. “Go back to bed, kid.”

Thomas doesn’t look pleased about it, but he takes his candle and goes. Daud waits and watches the light dance across the ceiling, until Thomas blows it out and he can hear him settle down in his pile of cushions.

Daud flops back and stares at the ceiling. He hasn’t reacted like that in...fuck, a long time. He had to get over it, the snap reaction to attack right out of his sleep, with kids around. He had done it with Billie, once. He hadn’t choked her. He had been sleeping on the floor right next to her, huddling together to keep warm. She had stirred, sat up for something, and roused Daud enough for him to see a dark figure six inches away. Daud had seized her by the back of the head and slammed her face to the floor.

She had also claimed she was fine. Her nose was just bloodied; he hadn’t broken it or anything. She brushed Daud’s concerns aside as he bandaged her nose and cleaned the blood from her face. The flesh stayed purple for about a week.

After that, he trained himself out of it. With the way they lived, he and Billie often slept together in close quarters, and he couldn’t be hurting her like that. And then when Thomas came along, he frequently wanted to cuddle up to one or both of them. Which Daud indulged him in because, fuck, he was five. He hadn’t even worried about it in years.

Now he was doing it again. First to Lizzy, then to Thomas.

They would avoid waking him up like that now, at least. Daud can’t imagine anyone else here trying-most everyone avoided stepping foot into his attic bedroom. And when he’s back in Dunwall Tower, he’ll have a locked door between him and everyone else and he’s giving no one the key. He’s never co-sleeping with anyone ever again. It wasn’t an issue. Just something he had to deal with, now.

He allows the Talisman to form in his hand, holds it inches from his nose and kisses its surface. “How did we get here, Billie? Can’t even get a moment of peace.”

 _‘I will be glad to rest,’_ she says.

 

* * *

 

His sleep is thankfully free from all sorts of dreams from then on. Daud wakes with the sun and nips out to do his morning exercise regime before Thomas stirs. He stays out past breakfast time and avoids the factory floor, where Thomas will be studying with Lydia, with those browning finger-shaped bruises at his throat, and goes straight back up to the attic.

He’s halfway up the stairs when the sound reaches his ears, stopping him in his tracks. Someone is in his room. In his sanctuary, near his bones and his weapons, where Thomas sleeps safe and sound. Someone is in there alone.

And she’s singing.

“They said what, are you, but a harbinger? To leave us hopeless and forlorn.”

Daud slowly steps up to the top floor landing, leaning around the doorway to catch a glimpse without been spotted himself. Rose is kneeling on the floor, a sponge in her hand and a bucket at her side.

“The wolf bore it’s fangs, and spread it’s claws. And tore out it’s own eye. Drink my blood, and become my sons. Or by dawn you’ll not survive…”

By the Void, her voice is beautiful. He knew Rose sang, and she must have had some sort of training at some point because she could talk music theory with Lydia. But Rose was usually silent unless spoken to. She never sang for them.

“And so the pack was born again, as the wolves of old Redmoor. To rule in life, and serve in death, as the moonlight-bound hunter.”

Daud Blinks into the room to avoid being seen. He watches from behind as she scrubs the floor, suds sticking to her hands. The tune is sorrowful, thoughtful, and Rose’s voice was thin and high. Clear, like a bell. He always thought that saying was stupid, but listening to Rose now, he understands it. She sings as if a bell’s ring had words.

“And so the pack was born again.” She sings quieter now, slower. “As the wolves of old…Red..moor.” Her voice lilts up, breaks, like the lyrics themselves are crying. “To rule in li-ife, and seeerve in death, as the moonlight’s dark….hunter…..”

Rose’s singing dissolves into humming, and Daud waits and listens to the sweet tones until he’s sure she’s not going to continue with her song.

_‘Redmoor is ancient. It’s history crosses with legend. And none is more famous than the story of Redmoor’s great beasts, roaming the cliffside.’_

Daud clears his throat. “That was beautiful.”

Rose yelps, nearly tipping over the water bucket in the process. “Fuck!” she curses under her breath. Daud lazily watches her as she scrambles to her feet, wiping her hands on her trousers and straightening her back. “Daud! I’m sorry, I was just...I didn’t hear you come in…”

“Kind of snuck in. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Rose nods without meeting his eye, then bends over to collect her bucket. She instinctively holds her stomach as she does so. Daud swallows.

“You don’t have to stop.”

“I can come back later,” she says hurriedly. Daud frowns. To be completely fair, Rose, of all people, would probably be most justified being nervous about being alone with an adult man in his bedroom. Daud would never hurt a woman or, well, anyone in that way, but she didn’t know him well enough to know that.

Plenty of people thought he did that to Billie.

“Rose. Wait.” Daud holds up a hand. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

She hesitates, but she turns back around. She continues to clutch her bucket until Daud motions for her to put it down.

“You can make bonecharms,” he leads in, which sounds so incredibly stupid to his ears that he nearly smacks himself. “It’s an...unusual skill. I’ve met very few people who can.”

Rose clasps her hands in front of her. “I’d prefer not to elaborate on where I learned it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“That’s fine. None of my business.” He’s already figured Rose’s mother was a witch. Whether she was like Delilah’s witches or had been a loner, harmless until someone crossed her, like Daud’s own mother had been, that he can’t say. But Billie tells him Rose herself is the latter. Still growing, still learning, her heart still unblackened. So he could fucking care less about the rest. “I want to know if you can do more.”

She presses her lips together before nodding, looking up to meet his eye. “I can. But doing them requires a lot of whalebone.” She lets the question hang in the air.

“I can bring you some.” Daud sits down on his bed. Rose turns her eyes back to the floor, and Daud watches as she fidgets. “How old are you, Rose?”

“I’m sixteen as of the Month of Wind, sir.”

Two months ago. Nearing three, if her birthday was at the beginning of the month.

“I see.” He purses his lips. “Who’s the father?”

She stammers, speaks too quickly. “I don’t know who my father is, sir.”

“Not. Yours.” Daud points down.

Rose stares at the floor somehow more intensely than before, her shoulders so rigid and stiff she might crack like ice at a stiff breeze.

Daud tries to speak more gently this time, but it probably still comes off like he’s lecturing her. “Do you know who he was?”

She nods, but she still doesn’t look up.

“How old was he?” When she doesn’t answer, Daud does it for her. “Too old?”

“Fifty or so,” she mumbles.

Cold anger collects in his chest, and his fingers automatically tighten. Fucker had a decade on Daud. Rose had been fifteen. Had to have been. Daud had never felt the urge to impregnate literal children, so it couldn’t be that hard to refrain. Was it really so hard to _not_ fuck kids?

Fuck, what was wrong with people?

“Do you want me to kill him for you?” he says bluntly.

Her eyes fly up, going wide in shock. But then a dark cloud crosses her face, and her frown only deepens. “No,” she says in a voice that he wouldn’t have thought belonged to her. “I want to do it myself.”

_‘She sees you as someone worth looking up to, and she follows our example. Her heart might not be so bitter otherwise.’_

Daud forces himself to smile. “Wait until Thomas is on the throne. I can make it so the courts won’t touch you. You could kill him in the middle of Holger Square and you’d never see the inside of a jail cell.”

“I think I’ll go with something a little more discreet, but I appreciate it.” And then she grins in a way Daud’s only seen her do with Thomas.

He leans forward, forcing himself to hold eye contact. “I hope you know that when this is all over, you have a job waiting for you in Dunwall Tower. If you want it, that is.” He turns and opens the drawer on his bedside table, fishing around for his key. “I know it’s not my business, but if you plan to keep the kid, education’s provided. For you and your brothers, too.”

“Like, as a maid?” She shifts in her boots. “Or a cook? Because I’ll come clean, I really can’t cook. I’ve been fooling Gerald for weeks now.”

Daud waves his hand. “We’ll find a place for you. And your talents.” Officially, he’d probably place her as one of Thomas’s attendants. Unofficially, Daud’s already thinking of the vacant Spymaster position, and if he was being honest with himself, there was no way he could ever trust someone other than himself to be Thomas’s Spymaster. He’d need his own fleet of agents, and the majority of people Daud had ever even sort of trusted before are dead.

But in addition to that, Daud could think of a lot of uses for a witch who could hide her colors. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, just like him.

She straightens out her shirt, and Daud sees where her belly presses up against the fabric. “And people won’t talk? About me being so young, and...and stuff?”

“People have better things to talk about.” Daud rolls his eyes as he fits his key into the padlock keeping his bones secure. That was true enough-there were plenty of more important things happening everyday at Dunwall Tower. Even so, people would still gossip. Probably gossip even more because of her friendship with Thomas. People had gossiped about his and Thomas’s relationship, spread rumors about Billie being pregnant seemingly every time she smiled at a man. Hell, people still whispered about the circumstances of her own birth, even though everyone _knew_ Billie was the product of an affair, that her mother had been a lowly gardener. It wasn’t like it was a secret. People still acted like it was a scandal twenty years after the fact.

But rumors were inconsequential to people like them. If somebody had a problem with Rose, they could take it up with Daud. The gossip would never reach her ears.

“I mean, I suppose.” She fidgets. “My mother had my brother and me when she was seventeen though, and she always said we ruined her life.”

“For being born? You weren’t the ones that decided to fuck.” He scoffs. “I’ll tell you a secret, my mother was sixteen when I was born. I’m not going to lie and say life was easy for her. But she did fine for herself. And so will you.”

With that, he pops open the desk. “How many different charms do you know how to make?”

She blinks at the subject change, but gets back with the program quickly. “Oh, uh, a few? I don’t think most of them will be useful to you. I made a lot of charms for things like enhancing charisma, or birth control. Not that I, uh, saw much use from that.”

“Can you learn new charms?” Daud shifts the desk so she can see the contents inside.

Rose nearly falls over.

“How…” she breathes. She reaches her hand out, never taking her eyes away from the charms. “Can I touch them?”

Hesitantly, Daud nods. “Just put ‘em back when you’re done.”

Rose lets out a literal squeal as she dig her hands in. Daud cranes his neck and watches her carefully.

“How did you find all of these?” she gasps as she runs her fingers along the ends, letting the charms clink together. “You must be the luckiest scavenger ever.”

Wasn’t luck, Daud thinks sheepishly. It was all Billie. They showed up on Void Gaze, but he couldn’t see very far with it. Thirty meters, at most. Billie could sense the bones from a few hundred.

Just another way he’d be fucking lost without her.

“Fuck, you have runes too.” Rose nods approvingly. “Those sell for a pretty turn.”

Daud slides the box of runes to the other side of the desk. “I’m not selling my runes. Don’t touch them.”

She regards him oddly, and Daud swears her eyes dart to his hand.

But then Rose shrugs, and she returns to examining the charms. “There a bunch here that I don’t know how to do myself. I can learn-but learning a bonecharm destroys it.”

The thought makes him want to rip Rose away from his bones. “How? Why do you need to _ruin_ them?”

Rose pushes away from the desk. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but it involves scraping the inscriptions off-I can show you sometime, if you have a few hours to spare. It takes some time. And I’m...it can put you in a trance. Good way to lose most of a day.”

Daud didn’t exactly have much to do, but Rose has a job. She can’t disappear for hours at a time. He pulls down the top over the desk.

Rose picks her bucket back up. “Let me know when you want me to teach you. I’ll get Reed to cover me for a few hours so I can slip away. And pick what charms you can stand to part with.”

“Will do. I’ll keep an eye out for raw whalebone when I’m out.” He snaps his head back as Rose turns to leave. “Rose? Don’t breathe a word of this to Thomas.”

She makes a motion as if locking her lips. “Not a word. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

Afternoons are a bit tricky when it comes to keeping busy. Thomas’s lessons are over after lunch, so he can’t sit in on those, and Thomas himself usually disappears to screw around with Rose. He’d rather let Thomas spend time with someone his age than force him to entertain Daud, so he tries not to let it show how bored he is.

Lizzy is technically on bedrest until their next mission, and while she’s doing much better than Trimble predicted, she’s not exactly in sparring shape. She mostly just wanders around drinking and yelling at people, which Daud respects as a lifestyle choice, but wants no part in.

Lydia also vanishes after lunch, and Paul usually takes a nap to escape Thalia’s incessant nagging. He doesn’t understand Ricardo worth shit. Galia is usually up by noon, but half the time she’s glued to Zhukov’s side and he’s _not_ dealing with that. Jerome’s always busy, so Daud doesn’t like to bug him too much. He can never find Reed. That’s pretty much everyone he can sort-of stand in this place. He finds himself out of people to talk to very quickly.

He tries to get back into reading, but it’s like his thoughts are going too fast to pay attention now. There’s only so many times he can work out in a day without seeming like a complete nut. He needs a fucking hobby. Maybe he should take up whittling.

Daud settles on snooping.

It wasn’t even intentional, at first. Daud was out practicing his powers, and his dream came back to him. The way the Rat King pulled his arm down, how he seemed to move when the world was stopped. Daud examines his runes, practices the motions. And eventually, the power just clicks.

Daud stretches his hand out and brings his elbow down, his palm facing his nose. The color seeps from the world, and the air itself seems to slow.

Time itself stutters to trickle, leaving Daud to take it all in.

He can’t keep it up for long-and it burns through his mana like crazy, leaving him nearly drained after each use. He drinks probably unhealthy amounts of water while he practices, determined not to waste valuable elixirs on training.

He’s on top of the guard house that serves as Lizzy and Edgar’s sleeping quarters, having been throwing various objects in the air, slowing down time, and then Blinking forward to catch them for the past half hour or so. He’d gotten careless, assuming he was high enough to avoid being seen. His footing stumbles as he tries Blinking to a pipe and he falls, just as Edgar Wakefield exits his dormitory.

There’s really no good explanation for why or _how_ Daud is on top of the pipes, so he panics for a split second. He clenches his hand, his perceptions magically speeding up to the point that the world grinds to a halt there, mid-Blink. He looks around for a place to Blink to and, _fuck,_ behind Edgar seems as good a place as any.

Daud Blinks past the door, landing on his feet just as Edgar closes the door behind him.

And it occurs to Daud that this wasn’t really the best plan. He’s sort of stuck here for now, as Edgar would have questions about Daud exiting his room right after him.

He eats from Edgar’s stash of tartlets as he goes through drawers. Edgar himself has really nothing of interest-logbooks from his time in the Navy, some audiographs that contained musings on their missions. But there’s really nothing pertinent. Edgar was able to put on airs and act like he knew what he was doing, but Billie was right, as she always is. His skull was thick and his head full of nothing.

Daud feels a little guilty going through Lizzy’s belongings, but he reminds himself that the time for trusting people has passed. It had already cost him Billie. He couldn’t make those mistakes with Thomas on the throne. He trusted no one.

It’s quite clear that Lizzy had always been the brains of the duo. She knew how to do Edgar’s job better than him in the Navy, and she had headed up the Dead Eels gang with him as her lieutenant. Which makes Daud question why she even needed Edgar around. He was the brawns, sure, but Lizzy had plenty of those too. Perhaps it was just for the intimidation factor. Lizzy was terrifying because Daud knew she was tough, but for all her brutality, she was a small woman. Your opponent underestimating you could be useful, but it would be a detriment in the gangs. Daud knew how important it was to project an image.

Lizzy has very few personal effects, but Daud does come across a tackle box shoved under her bed. The top is filled with pearls. Necklaces and bracelets, strings of pearls in all shades of white, blue, pink, and black. Loose pearls rolling every which way. A few pieces that had gemstones as accents, but the majority of it is pearls.

The bottom is filled with letters. Letters, as Daud finds, written by Mortimer Hat to Lizzy. They’re dated, some of them reaching back decades, when Lizzy was a little girl.

He only skims over one letter, one dated from about a year ago. Old Hat, in his spiny handwriting, talks about his business under plague conditions and Lizzy’s naval accomplishments. It’s surprisingly soft for a man of Hat’s standing. Caring. He calls her ‘his little river pearl’.

Fuck, that’s annoying. Daud’s always hated pet names, even for kids. The Emperor, when away from the courts and constraints of royalty, had called Billie ‘Cocoa Puff’ on occasion. It sounded stupid and just reinforced his theory that the Emperor couldn’t actually remember her name on a consistent basis. The most Daud would call her was ‘little Empress’ when he was annoyed with her and wanted her to know it. She had a goddamn name and he was going to use it.

Daud puts the letter back, slides the box back under her bed. It felt too wrong, to read these words from a man to his beloved daughter. Despite his curiosity, he was too uncomfortable to continue.

Then it was like an addiction. He went through the Copper’s meager belongings, Rose’s boncharms and various bottles of liquids, Reed’s book of surprisingly good pencil sketches. Ricardo has nothing of interest besides a silver necklace with a blood amber pendant and a worn charcoal drawing of a girl with thick hair swept up into a bun. Lydia Boyle composed her own music and left sheets scattered about her room, along with a bow harp with a loose string. Her diary spoke of her dissatisfaction with noble life, her desire to focus on developing her musical skill, her distaste for her male suitors and confusion over her feelings for her female servants, her fellow noblewomen.

He sneaks into the Dressmaker’s living space while he’s off at Jerome’s shop. Living up to his name, the man has bolts of fabric and spools of brightly colored threads lying around, a few half-finished projects still on mannequins. Sketches with design ideas tacked up and littering the table. There’s several sketches of outfits he had designed for the Empress, which Daud passes over with barely a glance.

His back wall was also covered in drawings. Children’s drawings. Daud spots one that Thomas did, when he was very young, of a whale and a stick figure with a scar fighting it off with a sword. A lot of kids had presented the Dressmaker with drawings, it seemed, and he kept decades worth of scribbles to proudly paper his wall.

There’s also dolls and toys lining his shelves, and Daud roots through his drawers to see if he can find that one lock of Billie’s hair. But there’s only loose scissors, buttons and pencils. Daud shuts the drawer.

Sneaking into Jerome’s shop is a bit trickier, since he doesn’t reliably show up for meals with the rest of the group, but he times it for when Jerome slips away to visit the market. Daud finds quite a few explosives, but beyond that, there’s no real dirt. Jerome ironically seems to have the fewest skeletons in his closet, despite the number of bones he keeps in there.

He hesitates on looking through Galia’s room, not because he respects her too much or anything, but because she shares the space with Zhukov. But he eventually pushes that anxiety down, tells himself how stupid that was. Zhukov was no threat. Despite his height, Daud’s sure he could put Zhukov down with two fingers.

Still, Zhukov was...unnerving. Just in general, but what more, he can’t get a read on him with the Talisman. Billie is strangely silent whenever he tries to get her thoughts. Not like she has nothing to say about him-Billie had something to say about everyone, and even if she didn’t, she had some other sort of scathing remark at the ready. He couldn’t feel anything from her when he sets her on Zhukov. It was like she couldn’t even see him.

Galia Fleet keeps her Watch sword displayed above her bed, the edge sharp and shined. Her medals aren’t on display, but Daud figures she left them with her sister. He knows she has a number of them. He awarded her some herself.

Her cot is the only bed in here, hidden behind a curtain. Normally that might set off some alarm bells, but while Galia was certainly fanatic about Zhukov, it never struck him as...like _that._ There’s only a large armchair, set up to look out the window, and the leather reeks of Zhukov’s smoky, sulfuric signature scent. Zhukov sleeps sitting up, alright. Somehow that doesn’t surprise him.

The rest of the room is filled with worktables and tools. And when Daud opens a drawer, he finds nothing but bleached white bones.

So Zhukov could make bonecharms too. Maybe that was why Billie was blind to him. Perhaps he had a bonecharm that hid himself from her gaze.

Daud didn’t like that.

Disappointingly, there’s nothing else of note in here. If anyone had something worth snooping through, Daud would have guessed it would be Zhukov, but the man seemed to have zero possessions. Nothing from his homeland of Tyvia, no books or journals or little trinkets. He didn’t even seem to have a spare set of clothes. Maybe it was a blessing he smelled like charcoal and smoke, if the fucker never changed his underwear.

Thalia was set up in the great room, her bed behind a number of fancy changing screens to give the illusion of privacy, as Gerald and Paul both had bunks on the other side of the room. She has a number of diary-like audio logs, all of which were about social events and gossip and all mind-numbingly boring. The only halfway interesting one was the one she recorded immediately after Thomas was rescued.

_“Day Twenty-Five, Month of High Cold.”_

Her voice is just as grating as ever.

_“Well, Daud managed it. Rescued the Empress’s brother. Nearly got Stride killed in the process, which would have been inconvenient, but we could have recovered from that setback.”_

Inconvenient. Thalia better hope she never needs their help. He and Lizzy might just find it an inconvenience.

_“I’m forever amazed by his efficiency. A mere day after he escapes from prison, he single-handedly took down Luca Abele and framed his assistant for the job. He’s accomplished more in less than a week than the rest of us have in a month. He’s done things I scarcely thought were possible._

_“I have to wonder what exactly it is that fuels him. The late Empress is at the root of it all; Daud was so clearly in love with her. But is love his drive? Or guilt? Regret, maybe.”_

It was anger. Pure, murderous rage that would very soon take aim at all the people who kept insinuating he had fucked Billie.

_“I have to wonder what exactly transpired that day. If Daud even remembers who really killed her. Or why._

_“In any case, Lord Thomas is safely with us. He’s staying with Daud for now, which has several of us on edge, considering his history and the capacity for violence he’s displayed over the last few days. Edgar justifies the decision and reminds me that Thomas is Daud’s biological son, and he would certainly refrain from hurting him, but that brings little reassurance. He loved the Empress too._

_“No matter. This city has been at a standstill for too long, moping in past events that we cannot change. It’s time to move forward. Uncle Arnold is dead, killed by Daud’s own hand. Legally, whoever has power of attorney for my grandmother now is also my guardian, but that will cease to matter upon my eighteenth birthday. By the time this business is finished, I’ll be of age and set to inherit my fortune, and I will be the one in charge of my destiny. I have to wonder, after the coronation, will Lord Thomas be looking to wed? Food for thought.”_

Daud rips the punchcard out, only barely avoiding tearing it in half. He angrily smoothes it out and slides it in with the rest of her audio cards, moving to shuffle through her trunk.

Thomas was not marrying Thalia Timsh. Daud didn’t much care who he ended up with, but he was putting his foot down at her. He always said he wouldn’t control their choices, but he wasn’t really telling Thomas who to marry, was he? Just who not to marry. It was a small list.

Fuck, that was another thing Daud hadn’t given much thought to. Noblewomen would be out in droves, seeking Thomas’s hand in marriage. He would not be happy about that. Though Thomas didn’t necessarily have to marry a woman-he just had to have heirs. Billie had intended to never marry. She had it a bit simpler, though. No one could say the new heir wasn’t the Empress’s kid when they literally slithered out of her. People would question the paternity of Thomas’s children. But the Emperor had dealt with it, so it couldn’t be impossible.

Still. Thomas hadn’t even planned on having kids. He had been content with being ‘the fun uncle’ who spoiled the kids and annoyed their mother. He won’t get to be that either.

The subject brings Thalia’s other topic to the forefront of his mind, as he rifles through her clothing. It was clear that everyone thought he was Thomas’s father. He doesn’t know _how_ they think that-Daud is olive-toned in a way that makes his skin look yellow in the right light, with brown hair that was considerably darker when he was younger. Thomas’s skin has warm undertones and goes pink easily. What more, he’s blond. Daud’s no genetics philosopher, but considering how Billie clearly didn’t get her skin tone from the Emperor, her mother would have had to look similar. And they were claiming that she was Thomas’s mother too. There was no way in the Void that Daud and someone with Billie’s dark complexion could create Thomas.

Not only that, but how did they layer on Daud and Billie fucking? Daud would have had to know her since she was six at the very oldest, if he had been around to conceive Thomas. It was doubly gross when you considered Daud would have been, like, her stepfather or something in this scenario.

He was convinced all noble families must be full of perverts, if this was the norm for them. Fuck, he was glad he wasn’t born into nobility. Looking through Thalia’s fancy clothing and expensive trinkets, none of it could be worth the bullshit.

“Hey, man.”

Daud jumps, nearly banging his shoulder on the wall. He curses and turns to Paul, who’s leaning against the doorway and swinging a set of keys.

They stare at each other for a moment. Then Paul laughs and pushes away from the door. “I’m not gonna say shit to Tails, don’t worry. The look on your face was priceless, though.”

“I was wondering if I was going to have to kill you,” Daud mumbles, shutting the lid of the trunk he was currently snooping through.

Paul closes the door behind him. “I hope not. I got things to do, man.” He motions behind Daud. “You come to try on her heels? I’ve done it a few times. Her feet are pretty damn big, so you shouldn’t have a problem.”

Wiping his hands on his pants, Daud stands up and regards Paul with mock suspicion. “I’ve never worn heels, but the Empress once referred to them as ‘torture devices whose only purpose is to gouge the eyes of men out’. So I think I’ll pass.”

Which was all very true. High heels weren’t really in fashion anymore, having gone the way of ankle-length skirts and corsets, but Billie had been shoved into all three in her younger years. She never got used to walking in heels. Daud literally needed to lend her his arm so she wouldn’t fall on her ass while wearing them. Her advisors gave up making her wear them after one incident where she yanked off her heels and chucked them at a pursuing suitor’s head before making her getaway barefoot. They had found the incident far less amusing than Daud had.

Though Paul just laughs and shrugs his shoulders. “They’re damn sexy, though. But your call. You smoke?”

Daud stands there for a moment, then tentatively nods. Paul plops down on the floor and slides a box from under his cot, flips the top open.

Then, to Daud’s surprise, he pulls out a bong.

Daud stands and watches as Paul empties a little bag into the bowl, then sets it aflame with a flick of his lighter.

Paul holds his hand over the mouthpiece, and Daud nervously shoves his hands into his pockets. “Uh, that? That, I do not smoke.”

“To each their own.” Paul shrugs. “I’m surprised, though. Thought you toked up with the Empress.”

“Billie didn’t smoke either.” Daud had even smacked cigars out of her hand when she was younger, at which she had protested and called him a hypocrite. He relented, eventually, but she had always smoked expensive brands of cigarettes that smelled stupid and artificial. Daud wishes now that he had relaxed more, that they had shared his shitty cigars together when there were no eyes on her.

But Paul just laughs at that. “Empress Billie? You can _not_ tell me that woman wasn’t under some kind of psychoactive substance at times.”

“I am telling you so,” Daud argues. “Because her court would have thrown a goddamn fit. She couldn’t even drink whiskey without somebody getting their panties in a knot, you think she was getting high in her off time?”

“From everything I’ve heard, yeah.” He uncovers the mouthpiece and inhales. “People said you could always tell because she’d show up to court all mellow and the like. Usually she’d be dressin’ fucks down as soon as they looked at her wrong.”

Well, that part was true. Billie spent a lot of her time at court yelling. Not as much when she first became Empress, so young and afraid of doing the wrong thing, but as time went on and she grew more comfortable in her role, she made her distaste for her peers quite known.

Not that Daud blamed her. Hell, he egged her on.

And it was true that there would be days she was inexplicably calmer. Daud had chalked it up to her age, or simply the fact that she was _Billie_ and he didn’t fucking understand why she did anything.

“That’s called being a hormonal young adult, Paul,” Daud mutters angrily.

Paul laughs loudly. “Right, and so is getting baked. Case in point.” He points to the bong.

Well, this was getting nowhere.

Daud plops down on the floor, his eyes scanning over the various papers and drawings Paul’s pinned up over his bed. “Interesting art you got there.”

“Oh, that?” Paul takes another hit. “Tattoo designs. Came up with them myself. You got any tats, Daud?”

Tattoos were more common in Serkonos, where people generally wore less clothing to compensate for the heat, but Daud found himself agreeing more with the Gristolian stance on tattoos. They reeked of deviance and were usually associated with criminal behavior. Not that Daud was in any place to judge, but he believed it said a lot about a person to want to project that image. He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “Uh, no.”

“Shame. It’s an artform.” Paul takes another puff. “I told Lizzy I’d do her other sleeve, when this bullshit is over. Already started on the sketches. Think we got a topless mermaid in there somewhere. It’s the tits, literally.”

Lizzy already had a full sleeve on her right arm, and Daud knows she has a few on her back and her stomach. It wasn’t like he minded-it was her skin, she could fuck it up if she wanted. But he wasn’t about to call them works of art. He thinks she’d look prettier without the tattoos, but then, he highly doubts Lizzy cares at all about being pretty.

Billie had wanted tattoos when she was younger. Sailors usually had a number of them, so he knew it was mostly just copycat behavior, but once she had a crown on her head it was forever off the table. The Empress couldn’t have tattoos, especially one who was already associated with depravity. Think of what people would say.

“You ever thought about getting some ink?” Paul continues. “Could just be something small at first. I just like ‘em cause they’re pretty, but a lot of people get something that means something to them. I know a couple that got each other’s names tattooed over their hearts. It’s fucking cute.”

He thinks about it for a minute. He’s never shirtless and will never show off his arms again, so it would be easy to cover up any tattoos. Hiding the Mark will be harder and far more dangerous. He doesn’t care about decoration, but he briefly entertains the thought of getting Billie’s name written on him somewhere. Then he thinks about the tattoo gun. There’s no fucking way he’s ever letting anyone near him with something like that.

Daud coughs. “I’m not really the tattoo type.”

“I can respect that.” They sit in silence for a minute, both of them looking in opposite directions and avoiding eye contact. “I want to open a tattoo shop. When I move back down to Karnaca.”

“You’re going back?” Daud raises his eyebrow. He never really entertained the thought of going back home. His mother wouldn’t be there, so why bother? The only time he ever truly thought about it was when men started tailing Billie everywhere and he considered moving all three of them out of Dunwall for her safety. But then it turned out that those men were Spymaster agents.

Paul nods. “One day, man. I was born in Morley, but I don’t remember it worth shit. Serkonos is my homeland. And Karnaca’s the closest thing to fucking paradise there is.” He takes another puff and then sets the bong aside, leaning against his cot with a dreamy smile. “Came up here with my best friend, was just supposed to be a year or so. But cities weren’t real keen on letting people back through customs when they might have the plague, and now with this official quarantine shit, we’re fucking stuck.”

_‘They’re closer than lovers. Twin spirits, they call themselves. Their bond is stronger for the distance between them, the rules and the need for secrecy.’_

Bit of a shame, that Paul was planning on leaving Dunwall. Daud had been hoping to hire him on as part of the Tower Guard. “So why are you working for Thalia? Where’s your friend?”

“I dunno where he’s at right now.” And even without Billie telling him so, Daud can tell that Paul is lying. “But we agreed we’d stay out of trouble, just try to make some coin while we wait this shit out. Thalia’s a huge bitch, but she pays well. This whole deal-” he holds up his hands as if to motion to the room. “-with the conspiracy and the new Emperor and shit, I didn’t sign up for that. Didn’t buy into it at first. Thought it was just a pet project. But say what you will about Thalia, she gets shit done.”

Daud can’t exactly bring himself to agree with that. Thalia can’t do shit herself. Other people have made all her plans work. He knows she’s only seventeen and he shouldn’t be so hard on her, but Billie was running multiple countries at that age. She had been reliant on other people listening to her orders without fucking them up, not improvising and making her shitty plans work the way Daud has. Supposedly Thalia wanted to be Princess Consort. She’d need to actually be competent to be the wife of the Emperor. It was a hard no on multiple levels.

“Well, I’m glad you decided to put up with her.” Daud gets to his feet. “It’s an asset having you here.”

Paul nods and raises an imaginary glass. “Same, man. I didn’t think we’d break you out. Glad we did.”

 

* * *

 

He’s standing in a broken-down shopfront, the shelves empty and the front door boarded shut. Daud is a prisoner in his own mind again; he speaks without input and watches uselessly as he moves his own body. He’s a puppet to his own memory now.

Billie stands before him, fists at her side, her nose scrunching up in all her teenage petulance. Her springrazor curls float around her head, the whale oil lamp behind her casting a dim halo as it illuminates the stray hairs at the edge.

There’s no Thomas around, so this had to be before he started living with them. Daud is wearing a coat, which he always does regardless of weather, but Billie is wearing a shirt that barely covers her shoulders and is showing some tightening in the chest. A few months after he met her then, as she’d been flat as a book until he got her eating properly. Must be hot out, if it’s warm enough for her to wear that. Made sense. He and Billie met in late winter, and Thomas hadn’t happened along until the following autumn. It was just him and her that summer.

He doesn’t even remember what this fight was about. Something stupid, inconsequential. Their voices are muted; all Daud can hear are his gruff mumbling tones and Billie’s shrill yelling, but words are not discernable.

But he remembers this. Fuck, he remembers doing this.

Daud holds up a finger to her nose and Billie swats it away, more out of the instinct to get it out of her face than true anger. It seems to annoy him, and Daud steps closer and closer as they argue. Billie holds her hands up and makes a face of disgust, and Daud responds by leaning down and getting in her face. She stands her ground. Daud reaches up and roughly shoves her back.

Her heel hits the bottom step and she stumbles a bit, but she doesn’t fall back. She looks down to assure her footing and turns her face back up to Daud, her eyes burning with anger. And Daud remembers, _remembers_ something about that look enraging him, made him want to scrub her snarky little mouth out with soap. But they didn’t have soap, so Daud grabs her by the shoulder, yanks her close to him and swiftly pops her across the face.

Billie falls sideways onto the stairs, holding out her hands to catch her fall and narrowly avoids banging her head on one of the steps. She’s already dripping blood onto the rotting wood. Her face is blank. Daud’s punch had knocked the wind right out of her.

Daud stands there in horror for a moment before he drops to his knees. And Daud remembers how this goes-how it should go. He had examined her split lip while apologies danced on his still tongue, and he’d silently cleaned up the blood and prayed that the wound didn’t need stitches because, fuck, he couldn’t afford a doctor and he doesn’t want to explain to one that he had sucker-punched a teenage girl a third his size for talking back to him. And then he made her tea as his own little sort of peace offering, and she started speaking to him again after two days. And that the next time he hit her, Billie had kneed him so hard in the groin that he had puked, just like he taught her to.

But all of this goes unseen. Daud’s just the monster that hit a little girl because his ego got bruised, and when he goes to brush her hair away from her face, get a look at her lip, her flesh gives way and melts under his fingertips. Daud turns the face and finds himself staring into the empty sockets of a skull.

He’s kneeling in the Imperial Crypt now, a place he hasn’t been inside since the Emperor’s funeral. He always waited outside when Billie went to visit her father. Now, instead, he’s in her tomb, kneeling in front of her sarcophagus.

Her name and her date of birth, her date of death are all inscribed at the foot of the coffin, but Daud’s eyes don’t linger on them, the way her death date is written in such slightly different handwriting than her birthday. He stacks the skulls at her feet and they stare at him, empty and judgmental.

Daud runs his finger over her name. The skulls begin to chatter, white teeth gnashing together and jawbones chipping with the friction. Daud pushes them away and touches his forehead to the hallowed ground, bows to his Empress.

 

* * *

 

The days pass in such fashion. Daud does a few rounds of snooping, even venturing into Granny Rags’s creepy hovel. He only spends a few minutes in there, bowing out after the creepy inscriptions on the wall and the smell of rat droppings gets to be too much. He’s unable to reliably predict Trimble’s behavior and look through his apartments, so Daud makes plans to sneak in while he’s asleep.

He spars. He trains. At night sometimes he watches Thomas scribble at his desk, cursing under his breath at his non-dominant hand. Sometimes after he’s finished, he folds up the paper and immediately feeds it to his candle. Daud tries not to let that bother him too much.

All the while, he keeps an eye on the giant bulletin board they’ve erected in the main hall, covered in pictures and maps and snippets of whatever information they’ve gathered.

Charcoal caricatures of both Abele and Timsh grace the board, both with their faces Xed out with red ink. It puts a smile on Daud’s face whenever he sees it. Delilah had her face up there, but her portrait mysteriously disappeared one night and now she’s only represented by the Regent sigil. Just fine. Having her watch as they ate was making him sick anyway.

They hardly have pictures for the rest. There’s no faces they can attach, not even real names. Just the flowers Delilah’s assigned to her witches. Aster. Heather. Iris. Freesia. _Gardenia._

Gardenia pops up often in Abele’s dossiers, oftentimes referring to what could only be magical practices. It had confused Galia in her first read-through, but with the knowledge that these people were undoubtedly witches seemed to clarify things. Gardenia had been entrusted with basically running the coven while Delilah played Regent, and seemed to be the backbone for a lot of Delilah’s spells and magic. One section that described a failed blood ritual Gardenia performed in an attempt to enamour Delilah to Thomas made Daud’s stomach turn.

But as important as Gardenia seemed to be, nobody was able to find a reference to his or her true identity.

They were just as lost with the rest of the witches as well. They weren’t mentioned nearly as much, lowering the chances someone would slip up, but they could still be crucial to taking Delilah down. The only names Daud is able to make any sort of connection with are two that Delilah repeatedly charges Luca with ‘safeguarding’. One’s Anemone, which Daud is certain is meant to refer to Joshua, which again makes him wonder how Abele ended up owning the poor kid. But it made sense, and it explained why Luca was looking for Rose. If the Coppers were a known family of witches, it would fit that Delilah would seek to exploit their magic.

And then there’s ‘Hydrangea’, who seems to be Daud’s parallel. Delilah’s assassin. Luca was supposedly tasked with keeping them placated until they needed someone dead. Something about referring to it as ‘setting Hydrangea on them’ makes Daud supremely uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it; nobody does. But they all knew it was proof that the Butcher was operating under Delilah’s control.

It didn’t scare him so much as it made him nervous. The Butcher was no match for a true killer. They wouldn’t survive an encounter with Daud.

No, it was the sheer fact that the Butcher was _unpredictable._ Wild. Either she knew a lot more than she let on, or Delilah was putting the fear factor over carefully selecting her marks. There were a lot of deaths that didn’t benefit her in any way. It was like she was letting the Butcher run rampant.

And if that was the case, Daud does not know how Delilah thinks she can control them, or why she’s willing to risk such a gamble in the first place.

In any case, the identity of the Butcher remains unsolved, and not a matter of utmost concern to them. The Butcher was the knife Delilah used to cut her enemies out from under her. She’d just find another if they disposed of the one she had now. They were going for the spine of the beast, let it all collapse out from under her.

But it’s the Butcher that gives them their next clue, their next link to the someone who might be able to tell them more, and that’s how Daud finds himself sitting at the dining table after Galia called another group meeting.

“Alright, we’re here. Tell us what the fuck I dragged my ass out of bed for at the ass-crack of dawn,” Lizzy says, yawning, from her place in Daud’s lap.

Daud rolls his eyes. “It’s nine AM, Lizzy.”

“Exactly. Bitch needs her beauty sleep.”

Lizzy claimed it necessary she sits on Daud’s lap, as Thomas is sitting in her old spot. Daud pointed out that there were other chairs and they could make them fit. Lizzy hadn’t responded and Daud just resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t getting her up again.

Trimble is unfortunately sitting to Daud’s other side, as Galia is standing near the bulletin board with a stack of folders in her hand. Daud hopes he’s uncomfortable with his proximity to Zhukov.

Galia, who just smiles and nods to Jerome, who’s been practically bursting with giddiness since they walked in.

“Jack Ramsey is dead!” he explains, grinning from ear to ear.

Everyone blinks.

“Who’s Jack Ramsey?” Daud leans and whispers to Thomas in an everyone’s-meant-to-hear kind of hushed tone.

Lizzy torques around in her seat. “Wasn’t it your job to keep track of dipshits like that?”

“I’m good with faces. Bad with names.”

Thomas rolls his eyes. “He’s a whaling baron. Or, was, I guess.” He fidgets. “What does that have to do with Delilah?”

“Nothing!” Galia says brightly. “He’s been in a huge feud with Bundry Rothwild. His workers walked off the job yesterday-and wouldn’t you know it, Ramsey had representatives right there to sweep up striking workers, offer them a job working for him. Last night his wife woke up to the sound of screaming and found him in their kitchen propped up against the stove, with his face burnt off and half his innards hanging out of his chest.”

“So Rothwild ordered a hit on his business rival?” Lydia asks, raising an eyebrow.

Edgar coughs. “So what?”

“Yes, how does this pertain to us?”

“Because his wife caught a glimpse of a hooded figure leaving the scene,” Jerome says, practically bouncing up and down. “Ramsey’s wounds were consistent with the other victims-it was a Butcher murder!”

Everyone is silent, and Jerome stops bouncing. “The Butcher. The one Delilah’s using.”

Paul taps his finger to his lip. “Yeah, but, how do we know the big bitch ordered this?” He leans back in his chair. “She doesn’t, like, own the dude. The Butcher might have taken a contract themselves. Or just felt a hankerin’ for murder.”

Galia slams her palm down on the table, causing Thalia to startle and eye Galia resentfully as she moves her teacup away. “It’s something, okay?” She huffs, her smile gone. “It’s the only lead we’ve found, okay? If Delilah allowed Rothwild the use of the Butcher, it might stand to _reason,”_ She turns and tacks up a drawing of a square-faced man that Daud immediately dislikes based on his slicked haircut. “-that she has an interest in keeping him happy.”

“Meaning they might have a partnership,” Jerome states. Galia shoots him a glare.

“That’s basically what I just said.”

Jerome holds his hands up.

“Anyway.” Galia tosses her hair back. “It’s a bit of a long shot, but there’s a few other coincidences that caught our attention.”

“No such thing as a coincidence,” Daud grunts, sipping his coffee. “This is Dunwall. Everything’s tied up like a bag of snakes.”

“Good analogy,” Lydia notes.

Galia rolls her eyes. “Exhibit A,” she begins, pulling out a copy of a ship’s building plan. “A ship owned by Bundry Rothwild. Lovingly entitled _My Gardenia.”_

“My uncle sold him that boat,” Thalia says, but then sinks back into herself. “I don’t know the meaning behind the name, though. I thought it was a...coincidence.”

“And maybe it is,” Galia continues. “Or maybe Delilah’s peppering the city with clues.”

More like she was rubbing her untouchable status in everyone’s face, Daud thinks.

“Exhibit Two!”

Galia pulls out another paper as the Dressmaker leans forward. “Pardon me, wouldn’t it be Exhibit B?”

“Really? That’s the fight you’re going to pick today?”

She stares him down, and the Dressmaker quickly goes white and sits back down. Daud shoots her a dirty look, but Galia’s not paying attention to any of them.

“This is a manifesto of all Rothwild Slaughterhouse’s outgoing sales.” She points. “You fancy folk probably don’t know shit about the whale harvesting industry, so I’ll give you a bit of a crash course. When we capture a whale, we don’t put it out of its misery right away. We bleed its supply of whale oil dry until they expire.”

“By the Void,” Lydia says, putting a hand to her heart. It’s probably the first time Daud’s seen her legitimately unsettled over such a thing.

Galia doesn’t even pause in her speech. “But eventually the poor fuckers do die. And we don’t let any part of them go to waste. We all eat whale meat, obviously. The organs and eyes and shit can be used to make medicine. So what’s left then?”

“Bone.” Zhukov says it like a starving man would describe a piece of sizzling meat.

Galia smiles uncomfortably. “Yes. The...the bones.” She clears her throat before continuing on in her normal fashion. “It used to be that you could make tools and jewelry out of whalebone, but the Abbey got their knickers in a twist and banned carving whalebone. Now, most slaughterhouses will grind the whalebone down to bone meal. Most of it destined for fertilizer.”

“This is all a very nice whaling lesson, but do you have a point?” Thalia fixes her with a stare.

Jerome gets to his feet and rounds the table. “This is our point.” He puts his finger to the middle of the page. “Demand’s crazy with most businesses shut down like this. Rothwild’s been making a killing with the oil and meat. But he’s hardly sold any bone meal in the last few months.”

Lydia twists around in her seat to get a look. “So where is the bone going, then?”

“Glad you asked!” Galia grins. “Funny thing, my spies have noticed Dunwall Tower’s been receiving shipments of whalebone. If Delilah’s a witch, I think we can all guess what she’s using it for.”

Nothing Daud can’t handle. Whatever project or spell Delilah was working on, it couldn’t slow Daud in his tracks. Not like he’s intending on letting her finish anyway. “Good enough.” He slaps at Lizzy’s thigh. “Up. Let’s go see what Rothwild knows about Gardenia.”

Galia’s smile dropped off her face. “But I haven’t even told you all my news.”

Trimble’s seemed to catch on that something is happening and reaches out to grab Lizzy’s arm. “Elizabeth is still supposed to be on bed-”

“I’m fucking _fine,_ William, you said so yourself.” Lizzy yanks her arm away.

And Daud would have left then, would have strode out and thrown on his coat, taken Lizzy’s boat himself if he had to. But Billie’s voice comes wafting back to him like sweet-smelling smoke.

 _‘Your recklessness will be your ruin. And what will your downfall make of him?’_ He can practically hear the ‘hmm’ in her voice and see her eyes roll over to Thomas. _‘The smoke is clouding your eyes.’_

Daud stands there, silent for a moment. Then he sits back down. “Okay. What else?”

Galia straightens her shirt as Lizzy rests her ass back on his knee. “I’ve had a plant in Rothwild’s slaughterhouse itself. It-well, I don’t know who it is exactly, but they worked with us at the Tower.”

“How does that work?” Paul folds his arms. “You have a plant, but you don’t know their name?”

“Leonid told me about it.” Galia rubs her temple. “We try not to use individual names too much. So if one of us gets captured, there’s only so much intel they can get.”

“Or they can get no intel.” Edgar shrugs. “You don’t have to tell them shit.”

Lizzy leans forward, her bony ass digging into Daud’s leg. “They torture people, Edgar.”

“Yeah, but you still choose whether to spill your guts or not.” Edgar smiles in that creepy, almost predatory way. “Heard Delilah’s harpies were beating the shit out of you, Daud, and you didn’t make a sound for six months. That’s tough if I’ve ever heard it.”

Daud presses his lips into a thin line and tries not to look in Thomas’s direction, whose mouth sits slightly open and his eyes wide with misplaced concern.

Lizzy folds her arms. “Edgar. Seriously.”

Edgar leans back, holding his hands up. “Just saying. Any of us gets captured, we just gotta take a page out of Daud’s book.”

“It shouldn’t come to that,” Galia says shortly. “None of us should be getting captured. If you’re worried about it, keep some poison on you. I always do.”

Lydia blinks. “That’s a little morbid, Miss Fleet.”

“Can I finish what I’m trying to fucking say?” Galia yells. Then she rolls her shoulders, turns back to Daud with a more neutral expression on her face. “The plant’s agreed to meet you there at sundown. They’ll give you the summary of events, help you get in if they can. But with the strike and everything, I make no promises that things will go a certain way.”

“Better than nothing.” Daud stands up. “You got a map of this place?”

After Daud and Lizzy have been debriefed on exactly where they’re going, and Lizzy battles it out with Trimble to get him off her ass, most of everyone has dispersed. Everyone besides Thomas, who still remains seated at the table.

“It shouldn’t take long,” Daud says, sliding back into the chair next to him. “Should be back tonight.”

“Can I ask you for something stupid?” Thomas asks, raising his eyebrows. “Can you let me know when you get back? Even if I’m asleep?”

“What, like when you were a little kid?”

But then Thomas’s face falls, and Daud feels like the worst kind of asshole.

“Yeah, yeah.” He puts his hand on Thomas’s arm. “I’ll wake you. So don’t bother waiting up for us.”

“Thank you.” Thomas smiles ever so slightly, but it’s gone with the wind and he turns back to Daud with fear in his eyes. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? Please?”

“Don’t worry, Tommy-boy, I’ll watch the old man’s back.” Lizzy laughs from across the table, still chatting away with Galia.

Daud swallows and nods. “You don’t need to worry about me, Thomas.”

“I just don’t want you-or Lizzy-getting hurt again. Not on my account.”

“I’ll be fine.” Daud moves his hand back. “I’ve fought fucks like this before. I can deal with them.”

“I know.” And then Thomas closes his eyes, and lets out a long shuddering breath. “I just really look forward to going back to the Tower where you don’t have to.”

Thomas hugs him, and Daud allows it, not voicing his thought that there will never be a time where he won’t have to draw blood for Thomas.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of Dunwall: "Lol, you totally fucked the Empress and her mom! Nice!" Daud's asexual ass: "Uh. Ew."
> 
> Some notes:
> 
> The song Rose is singing is 'The Wolves of Jorrvaskr' from Skyrim's 'Interesting NPC's' mod. Edited very slightly as the original references Ysgramor and the Companions questline, because even if my 'Pandyssia is actually just fifth-era Tamriel' theory holds any water, there's no way Rose would have known anything about Nordic mythology. [Give it a listen;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsupXVgqso8) it's very beautiful! Rose's voice is a little higher than Fjona and less stilt-y, but it's close enough to what I imagine her to sound like. And there's some shitty symbolism in her singing that song in Daud's room. (I'm a Fallout fan, so I don't know how I got to referencing Elder Scrolls lore in a Dishonored fanfiction)
> 
> It's not really clear if Lizzy and the Geezer ever actually met in canon. While he's dying, Mortimer Hat will talk to Daud about how beautiful Lizzy is, (something only a true dad could say) but I guess he could have just seen pictures. Their relationship was really one of the underrated things in the DLC, tbh. Whether he knew her as a child or not, it was obvious that Hat really loved her, and he's the only person whose death Lizzy actually seems sad about. There's a future scene where Lizzy drunkenly spills her guts to Daud about it all, so how that all translates into this AU will be explained.
> 
> I've never actually used a bong before, which is probably obvious. Weed is a Schedule I drug where I live, which means our government literally thinks it's worse than meth. (America, land of the free! Where we put more people in prison for pot than other countries do for all crimes!) Like, everyone still uses it anyway, except for me apparently. I've just never bothered. Which is fine, but it means I can't write about it very accurately. 
> 
> If this were the dark version of the Hallmark channel we could totally pull a Shutter Island and be like, 'Daud was the Empress's murderer all along, and he made up this elaborate theory in his head to cope with it!' But I'm not evil so I'll let you know right now that we're not doing that. Daud's biased and his pov is far from omniscient, but he's not an unreliable narrator. 
> 
> Idk how well painting Daud as abusive is going to go over. I don't buy into the whole idea of him being an evil and remorseless monster, but I also don't like it when people pin him as a perfect angel. He's complicated. He has human emotions and regrets and his own set of morals/reasons for doing what he does, and his motives are understandable if not justifiable. But he also makes a lot of bad choices, and it's a disservice to his character to not hold him accountable. I see Daud as having more of a cold fury that boils underneath the surface, so while he's not completely full of fiery rage like Billie is, he's still got anger problems. He and Billie are very similar, which means they can get along easily, but it also means they can rub each other in the entirely wrong way, and Daud's snapped before. It's not to say he's an entirely bad person because he's hit Billie. More like good and bad is a sliding scale instead of an either-or thing.
> 
> This chapter is primarily explaining shit, but next up we get to visit Slaughterhouse Row. Shit's gonna go down. Idk if there will be witches there, but if not there will be witches in the section after that. I should probably put fanfiction on break for the next month so I can, like, pass my classes, but I'm still holding onto the idea that I can write a successful novel and have an excuse not to finish my degree.


	11. A Captain of Industry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a whale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fucking long chapter. I blame Lizzy. Billie never shuts up either, but that's kind of her sole purpose in life, or...existence right now. So she can talk all she wants.
> 
> Warning for Lizzy doing drugs and some vaguely suicidal thoughts. I feel like that kind of applies to this entire fic. Daud's been low-key suicidal since the second chapter.

“Fucking A, Daud.” Lizzy points towards the slaughterhouse. “Place is crawling with bastards.”

Daud squints, then turns to Lizzy with an eyebrow raised. “It’s barely evening. We knew there’d be people still at work.”

“Yeah, but there weren’t supposed to be  _ so many.  _ Look!”

“There’s like, two of them, Lizzy.”

“No there’s-aw, fuck it, you don’t have a spyglass. Literally no-scoping it.” She grumbles for a moment, then turns  _ Melusine’s _ engine off. “There’s no way I’m getting her close enough to dock.”

“Let me guess,” Daud mocks in an overly-enthusiastic voice. “You need me to swim over there and take out the workers before you’ll dock the boat.”

“Either you or me, pal.” Lizzy smoothes her few wisps of brown hair over her head.

Daud groans and stands up. “When I die, you stay away from my funeral.”

The water tastes of fish and decaying plant matter, and a thin sheen of oil skims along the top. Daud takes care to keep his mouth closed.

As it turns out, his torture sessions actually ended up being useful for something. He’d had his head held underwater for so long and so many times that his breath capacity seems to have expanded. He only needs to surface for air once before he makes it to the docks. The cold bites through his gloves and burns his face, but Daud ignores it. It’s nothing, literally nothing compared to the sensations well up in the back of his memory, the ones he forces down and swims through.

The coastal shelf here is shallow, very shallow. Daud can’t touch the rocky bottom while keeping his head above water, though a marginally taller person probably could. Lizzy’s skiff would be able to navigate fine, but the larger riverboats made for hauling goods away from the slaughterhouse? How were those supposed to dock without scraping their hulls?

Whatever. It wasn’t like it was his problem to deal with. Daud pulls himself out of the water, glancing around to ensure the lower dock was really as empty as it looked, then turns his Gaze to the metal walkway above.

He doesn’t know what Lizzy is complaining about, because there are indeed only two guys here. Large, hulking guys that could probably snap someone in half, but just two of them. 

They were wandering about and chatting, something about a game of Nancy they had played earlier that week. They wouldn’t be difficult to take out, except for the fact that they’re in each other’s line of sight. Attacking one would alert the other. And Daud is...going to try to avoid killing here. He doesn’t need to.

He crouches underneath the stairs, waiting to see if one might wander down and make his job easier. He catches a glimpse of one’s face as he wanders near the staircase, but then the man turns and doubles back.

_ ‘Butchers. As dim as the hagfish that swim here.’  _ Billie breaks in all of a sudden.  _ ‘I’d say simplicity sometimes fosters innocence, but it takes a special kind of person to butcher these creatures. A brand of unfeeling.’ _

So they were brutes. Even Billie says so.

Daud shifts forward, trying to catch the other butcher with the Talisman. Billie has better judgement than his own, and he trusts her to guide him.

_ ‘He doesn’t go to the brothels. They don’t have what he wants. Girls. Young ones. Once they begin to bleed, they’re too old for him.’ _

Daud didn’t intend to turn this into a bloodbath. But the world would simply be a better place without some people.

He leans back and Blinks onto the walkway, a mere foot away from one of the butchers. Daud thrusts his sword into the man’s neck before he even has time to fully turn it.

Then Daud Blinks to a nearby pillar, perches there as the pedo-butcher rounds the corner. He sees his dead friend and immediately runs over, and that’s when Daud pounces. 

He throws the bodies over the railing right as Lizzy brings  _ Melusine _ over, docks her in the shadows. She waves, her mask already in place.

“Only two. I was right.” He fixes her with a stare as she jumps off the boat. 

Lizzy shrugs. “There was a third. He walked away while you were imitating a whale.”

“Oh no, you couldn’t possibly have handled three men,” he deadpans. “Might aggravate your rib, Miss Stride.”

“You gotta speak through your nasal passages! That’s how you do an authentic Trimble impression.”

 

* * *

 

They’d have to cross the yard once to get to the streets, where their mole would be waiting to meet up. It was easy enough-plenty of machinery, open-air buildings that all provided good vantage points twenty feet above everyone’s head.

The streets would be more difficult. Walkways spanning the width of the street and of varying heights, taking away Lizzy and Daud’s advantage of high ground. They skulk along the rooftops, ducking whenever a head pivots their way.

The place is crawling with guards.

“Fuck are these all here for?” Lizzy whispers. Daud just shrugs.

“Might be for the strike?”

“Why the fuck would the Watch care?”

As if answering her, a loudspeaker begins blaring.

**“This is a reminder that collective bargaining in any industry deemed vital to the state is a considered an act of treason as per the Lady Regent’s decree.”**

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lizzy hisses to the speaker. “Treason? For striking? How does that fly?”

“Dunwall is under martial law right now, Lizzy.”

“So?” She whips her head to him. “How does that justify shit?”

Daud shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not  _ justifying  _ it. I’m just saying that legally, everyone’s subject to military law right now. It’s different from civil law. The Watch is allowed to-”

“I don’t need a lesson in lawyering, grandpa.”

“You’re the one who fucking asked.” Daud grumbles and brushes her off. He understands her reasoning-it wasn’t right. Corporate interests should never be put before human rights. But the acquisition of whale oil was important. Maybe not ‘execute workers for complaining about pay’ important, but enough that he can see why the Watch was stepping in. A halt in production when most other slaughterhouses and refineries were shut down could be disastrous for the city as a whole. No increase in pay would help the workers if the entire economy collapsed.

Still. It shouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place. Billie had wanted to avoid enacting martial law-she likely would have had to, had she lived. The quarantine would have forced her to.  Billie had known that some bold measures would be needed to save Dunwall as a whole. She didn’t like it, but sometimes you had to cull a sick branch to save the whole tree. It was just the question of where to make the cut, what would balance functionality with her own morality. Who could she risk saving without causing more infection, more death? What actions to implement order would help stem the tide of sickness without her conscious keeping her up at night? How many  _ truly  _ had to die to save Dunwall?

Something like this, a worker’s rights issue regarding a privately owned slaughterhouse, it likely wouldn’t have gotten back to her. The Empress would have had her hands full trying to cull the plague. But if it did? Rothwild would have felt the full force of the Empress’s wrath.

Well. Now Daud will have to enact it for her.

“Fuck, they got an arc pylon set up,” Lizzy says while Daud is busy watching one butcher argue with a worker. 

“Okay?”

The butcher kicks the worker down, spits in his face and turns on his heel. Daud watches the pylon crackle as the butcher walks near.

It would be best for them to avoid the pylons, sure. It would knock them straight out, and unconscious in the middle of several patrolling guards is the last place either of them need to be right now. They’d probably kill Lizzy, and drag Daud back to Delilah. She’d know he was alive. And she would send him right back to Coldridge, torture Thomas’s location out of him.

Daud is not going back to Coldridge. He’ll die first.

Lizzy jumps to her feet all of a sudden. “I got this!” she exclaims excitedly, then disappears in a flash.

Daud blinks, and whips his head around. He can’t see her. What the hell?

Then Lizzy appears on the ground, maybe five feet in front of the butcher. And then she just...stands there. Stands nonchalantly as the arc pylon starts to charge up, as the butcher sees her and raises his cleaver.

Daud has half a mind to slow time, but what would that accomplish? He can’t go down there too. Everyone would see him. Then the pylon would knock him out, and then they’d both be screwed.

Lizzy was going to get zapped. He leans forward, biting down the panic in his throat. What the fuck was he going to do? He couldn’t let the Watch descend on her. He’d have to go in there and rescue her. And he doesn’t know how he’ll do that without either getting captured himself or giving himself away to every guard and citizen on this block.

Fuck Lizzy for putting him in this position.

The pylon crackles, and at the last second, Lizzy moves so the butcher is between it and her. Electricity shoots out, hitting the butcher in the back.

Except he doesn’t fall unconscious. His body literally bursts at the seams and dissolves into ash. He’s _gone._

It completely vaporizes him.

Lizzy’s still fucking down there. Daud can practically see the arc hitting her, every molecule of her body being burnt away in a flash. Here one second, and gone the next.

The pylon discharges a second time, but Lizzy is gone before it hits her. Daud can only tell she Blinked because he’s slowed down time, watching through his extended fingertips.

“What the fuck?”

One of the guards wanders out onto a balcony. “Did that just go off?”

“Probably just rats.”

“Sounded... _ big  _ to be a rat.”

“A swarm of rats? Maybe it was one of those useless workers. I don’t fucking know.”

Lizzy appears next to him, taking her mask off to reveal her excited, sweaty face.

“Man, that was awesome!” She whisper-yells while pumping her fist. “The adrenaline! Fuck!”

She seems to notice Daud’s less-than-enthusiastic face and straightens up, pressing her lips together in an effort to keep from smiling like an idiot.

Daud crosses the gap between them and slaps her smartly across the face.

“What the ever-loving  _ fuck? _ ” he hisses. “You were a second away from being vaporized!”

“Yeah.” She finger-guns him with the one hand she isn’t using to rub her cheek. “But I wasn’t!”

“Lizzy, if you die in such a stupid and unnecessary way, I will personally carve the most insulting summary of your death into your tombstone.” Daud’s heart is still beating wildly, but he can’t take a breath to slow it down. “Don’t you  _ ever  _ do something so reckless again, do you hear me?”

Lizzy’s jaw is dropped in shock, but then a choking sound emits from her throat. And the corners of her mouth turn up. “Wait. Daud, were you... _ scared  _ I’d be hurt?”

Daud presses his mouth into a grim line. Lizzy laughs and jumps into the air. “Holy fuck! I didn’t think you were scared of anything!”

“I’m not,” Daud says, even though he’s been honest with both Billie and Thomas about his fears before. Stupid stuff, like his fear of electrical storms or bloodflies, so they didn’t feel ashamed of their own fears. He never told them that his greatest fear was something happening to them. 

He wasn’t getting into it with Lizzy. Not right now. “I just don’t feel like doing your job too.”

“Liar!” Lizzy grins, playfully poking him in the side. “You were afraid! You care!”

She dances around, and Daud has to grab her and hold her still. “You shut your whore mouth right now if you know what’s good for you, Elizabeth Stride.”

“Ooooh, we’re using full names now. Scary!” She waves her hands, then works on putting her mask back on. “I’d reciprocate, but I have no fucking clue what your last name is.”

Daud smacks her shoulder and pushes her away.

“So what the fuck is up with those pylons?” he changes the subject, kneeling as he observes. “They shouldn’t...they’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

“Well.” Lizzy plops down next to him. “They fucking can.”

Daud rolls his eyes. “I know they  _ can.  _ But there are laws that limit how much electricity they’re allowed to put out.”

Billie had signed a number of limits on Sokolov inventions into law. And she was diligent about enforcing them. People messing with the voltage inhibitors, purposely jacking it up to  _ vaporize  _ people without discretion? She would have come down on them with the fury of the ocean. 

“You think these fucks give a shit about the laws your girl made up?”

Right. 

But Billie is dead. And Delilah’s proven she doesn’t care about ruling how Billie would have wanted, about preserving her legacy and her memory.

Delilah wasn’t skirting the line. Wasn’t even trying to find it. She was just taking an ax to the tree and taking out whatever looked ugly to her. All Billie’s careful planning gone down the river.

“It’s about sundown,” Lizzy says, scanning the horizon. True to her word, the sun is just beginning to touch the water, streaks of orange and yellow coloring the ocean. “Our mole should be ready for us.”

Their mole. Someone who had worked in Dunwall Tower, who had remained loyal to Billie through the end. Who was willing to risk torture and execution to defy her murderers, to bring her justice.

Daud pulls his handkerchief over his mouth and nose, just in case that loyalty didn’t extend to him. They might doubt he had it in him to kill Billie, but there was one hell of a bounty on Daud’s head right now. “Let’s go, then.”

They Blink up to the end of the street, past where the Watch feels comfortable wandering. A railcar still filled with coal sits dead on the streets. The rail hasn’t been running in months.

Up on a ledge, Daud can spot a figure with long brown hair and a blue shirt, looking over the empty square. Daud and Lizzy regard them carefully, until he turns his head ever so slightly and the recognition clicks in Daud’s head. And then he waves.

“Rinaldo!”

 

* * *

 

Rinaldo eyes them both suspiciously as Daud quickly scales the scaffolding, Lizzy meandering along a few feet in back of him. Then Daud pulls himself up to Rinaldo’s ledge, stands up straight and pulls down his handkerchief.

And Rinaldo breaks into a grin.

“Daud! Holy fuck!”

He steps forward to grab Daud’s hand and shakes it eagerly. “You’re the agent Galia was talking about?! I thought you  _ died.” _

“I’m a little harder to get rid of.”

“Well, Outsider’s balls,  _ obviously.”  _ Rinaldo laughs. “Fuck, it’s great to see you.”

Daud claps Rinaldo on the shoulder. “Good to see you too, Rin.”

There were few people in Dunwall Tower that Daud even came close to trusting. The only people he ever truly trusted were Billie and Thomas, and he trusted no one but himself to keep those two safe. Everyone else could be bought off. Corrupted. Could be hiding their true colors in the interest of getting close enough to strike.

But with that in mind, Rinaldo was probably the one person he considered closest to trustworthy.

He’d been stationed in Dunwall Tower as a young recruit, fresh off the boat from Serkonos, back during the Emperor’s rule. He and Billie had become fast friends. There was a three-year age gap between them, but Billie was always mature for her age. She often chose Rinaldo to accompany her when Daud couldn’t, or on occasions where she needed more than one bodyguard. But behind closed doors, Rinaldo and the Empress were silly teenagers, gossiping in whispers and making fun of Daud behind his back.

Daud also held a great amount of respect and gratitude towards Rinaldo for saving Billie’s life when Daud couldn’t. It had been shortly after she was crowned Empress. Still fourteen, before she hit her growth spurt and gained some muscle. At some winter festival Billie had to make an appearance at. A group of radicals who opposed the ‘mudlark daughter of a street whore’ sitting on the throne had diverted Daud’s attention to a decoy fight a few blocks away, and he had gone to help the Watch sort it out. Rinaldo and Billie had sat on a bench, chatting under the eye of a thinned Watch presence, when a second wave of rebels aimed their attack at them and threw a grenade that landed right at the Empress’s feet.

Rinaldo, in a show of extreme dedication and bravery, scooped up the live grenade and, without hesitation, threw it right back at the group. 

Daud’s only complaint was the fact that the grenade didn’t kill any of the rebels. They had scattered, like the cowards they were, and the grenade had detonated harmlessly in the snow. Then they shifted their focus to moving Billie out of the area so they could kill her, but she and Rinaldo fought them back until Daud and more Watch officers could arrive on the scene. Billie herself beat one would-be assassin half to death with the handle she snapped off a snow shovel. Daud had been so proud of her.

After Rinaldo recovered from the wounds he sustained in the fight, Billie had promoted him and granted him a lifetime appointment to the Tower Guard. He was her go-to ‘date’ for events where it would be inappropriate for Daud to appear as such, and was probably the only one out of the Guard that Daud would have been even somewhat comfortable promoting as Billie’s Royal Protector, if something had happened to Daud. There were other guards who were better swordsman-but Rinaldo was spirited, loyal. He would have thrown himself on a live grenade to protect her. And Daud might have been able to trust him to do so. Billie definitely had.

Even now, Billie thrums in his hands, a warm pulse of excitement over seeing her friend. Her joy almost spreads to Daud’s heart.

Daud turns around to help Lizzy climb on top of the ledge, where she bats his hands away and mumbles something about there being an easier way up. Daud just rolls his eyes. They couldn’t Blink in front of their mole. They’d talked about that. Even if it’s Rinaldo, Daud thinks it would be prudent to keep their magic under wraps. “Lizzy, this is Rinaldo Escobar. He’s cool. Rinaldo, Lizzy Stride.”

“Hey, fuckface.” Lizzy raises her hand in greeting. Rinaldo just nods his head, completely unfazed.

“Nice to meet you.”

There’s a scuffle down on the ground, and they pause long enough to ensure it didn’t involve them. Then Lizzy folds her arms, turns back to Rinaldo.

“Alright, lay the deets on us.”

Rinaldo blinks. “The...what?”

“The details. You’re our insider, undercover boy. What’s going on with the plant and the strike?”

“You’re wearing a butcher’s uniform,” Daud says, motioning to Rinaldo’s blue shirt and metal chestplate. “No offense, but you don’t seem like the type.”

“Oh, I hate every second of it.” Rinaldo rolls his eyes. “It’s filthy and my coworkers are all stupider than rocks. But the butchers have special ‘privileges’. And nobody bothers to watch their mouths when we’re around.” He shrugs. “Think we’re all too dull to understand what’s going on. That one’s fair, though.”

Daud turns and motions behind him, to the slaughterhouse. “So what’s up? I heard something about whalebone being shipped to Dunwall Tower?”

Rinaldo nods fervently. “Did Fleet tell you? We’re starting to think Delilah is a-”

“A witch. Yeah.” Daud keeps his face painfully neutral. “We know.”

“Oh. Well…I guess you would know better than me.” Rinaldo looks to the ground, digs his toe into a metal slate.

Lizzy snaps her fingers. “Whalebone, Rin-boy. Is it going to Dunwall Tower or not?”

That makes Rinaldo snap back to attention. “Well, the records will say we’ve been dumping it. But really, Rothwild’s been making us load it onto carts, filling them up half-way.” He shakes his head, his nearly waist-length dreadlocks clicking together in their ponytail. “Dunno why. Seems like a waste of space to me. But the carts are always gone by the next morning.”

“Are you fucks shipping anything else to Dunwall Tower?” Lizzy cuts in. Rinaldo tentatively nods.

“Yeah, all our whale oil goes directly there for distribution. Deal Rothwild made with the Regent.”

“They’re filling them up halfway to put oil on top of it, genius.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Trying to keep what Kaldwin is really getting in the mail a secret.”

“Oh. That...that makes sense,” Rinaldo says, nodding along.

“Secret-keeping didn’t work too well,” Daud grumbles. “Galia knew all about it.”

“Galia has her fingers in everything around here. She knows, like, everyone.”

“So what’s up with the strike?” Lizzy motions behind them. “And why is the Watch here?”

Rinaldo walks to the edge of the scaffold and kneels down. “Typical bullshit. Rothwild pays his workers like ass and doesn’t give a shit about safety. And he’s got the Regent backing him, so he thinks he can get away with it.”

“I mean,” Lizzy shrugs. “He can. He started throwing a tantrum about his workers walking off the job and she sent a fleet of men to coddle him.”

_ ‘Strikebeaters. Imagine.’  _ Billie’s voice is somehow scandalized while also incredibly bored.  _ ‘Imprisonment and torture, even execution. All for demanding what should rightfully be theirs.’  _ No. She’s tired.  _ ‘It was never meant to be this way.’ _

“But he’s not going to get away with it.” Daud fixes them both with a stare. “ _ We’re  _ not going to let him.”

“That’s good news if I ever heard it.” Rinaldo nods. “The union is being led by a woman named Abigail Ames. She’s a real smart cookie, and she actually cares about the workers. She’s one of the foremen here.”

“You got a woman as a foreman?” Lizzy asks, then shakes her head. “I’m not, like, surprised that she can do it. Hell, she probably does it better than the guys. Just thought that whaling was still pretty...you know.”

Rinaldo nods. “Oh, it is. It’s very sexist. There’s only one female butcher on the team, most of the ladies work in packing-but Ames has a way of commanding a crowd. Everyone was happy when she was promoted.”

“I take it the union didn’t go over to well.” Daud motions to the Watch officers.

“Nope. All the strikers and Ames herself were detained. Workers who weren’t on the premises when it started are being barred from entry.” Rinaldo motions to one sullen worker, leaning against the wall. “Taking their time cards and everything-you can’t get into the building without one. I got to keep mine, though. One of those perks I was talking about.”

There would be other ways in. There always was, for people like Daud and Lizzy.

“The Watch showed up around three this morning,” Rinaldo continues. “They and the butchers were given free reign to use force.” He turns back to Daud, his hands clenching into fists. “If you ever wanted to know why Rulf and I wanted out of Batista so bad, here’s your answer. Silver mines were no better than this. Worse, in some cases.”

“Where’s Rulfio now?” Daud asks. “He was stationed by the pavilion on…” he trails off.

“On that day.” Rinaldo finishes for him, his mouth set into a grim line. “Yeah, we figured it would only be a matter of time before he was arrested for some bullshit reason, keep him from poking holes in the official story.” He jerks his thumb. “We jumped ship pretty soon after Galia did. Could feel the storm brewing. Don’t worry about him, though. He’s been laying low, chilling with Fisher and Misha. I’m using a fake name here, so Kaldwin isn’t going to find either of us.”

“Good.” Daud nods. “Good.”  Rinaldo has basically raised Rulfio in addition to himself. Rinaldo’s twin was quieter, more thoughtful, and wasn’t as quick with a knife as his brother. But Rulfio made up for his lack of combat prowess with his perception. Thomas got along better with Rulfio, and he knew he and Fisher were good friends. Made sense that they were in hiding together. Daud wasn’t as close with them, but he didn’t want to see them get hurt. They were just kids. Stupid fucking kids.

Rinaldo turns to Daud with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. “I just want you to know, Daud, that none of us ever doubted you. We knew you didn’t have it in you to kill her.”

Daud doesn’t answer. Rinaldo clears his throat and continues on.

“We tried to tell people that Kaldwin was lying, but-”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Daud cuts in. “Everyone already had their minds made up. Delilah wanted me to take the fall for it. Nothing you did could have changed that. You would have just been thrown down with me.”

Rinaldo shakes his head and mumbles. “Still. Wasn’t right, letting that happen to you.” He shrugs. “Fuck, a couple of us talked about combing through the sewers, after shit went down at Coldridge, see if we could find you. We knew we’d probably just find a corpse, but it...didn’t feel right. Leavin’ you to rot.”

“Wouldn’t of found shit there,” Lizzy mumbles. “I picked him up like, an hour after he broke out. But yeah, he’d of been a bag of bones if we didn’t get to him then.” She whistles out of her teeth. “He was in  _ rough  _ shape.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised to see you out and about, then.” Rinaldo blinks. “Figured even if you did live, you’d be in bed. It’s only been three weeks.”

“Like I said, I’m hard to kill.”

“Clearly, because all my attempts have failed.” Lizzy stands up. “I’m gonna go do some scouting while you two do your catching up. I’ll be on the rooftops if you need me.”

Rinaldo eyes her curiously as she jumps down. Daud turns Rinaldo away so he doesn’t accidentally get a glimpse of her Blinking.

“So what,  _ are  _ you okay, Daud?” Rinaldo asks. “I know you like to act like you’re unstoppable, but, well, nobody is.”

“Whoever came up with that saying never met me.”

“I heard about what they did to you in Coldridge.” Rinaldo shakes his head. “Some of it, at least. Should you be doing this right now? That Lizzy girl, she seems pretty capable. Maybe you should be resting.”

“I’ve had enough sitting around and thinking about shit to last a lifetime.” Daud turns away. “I spent six months with nothing to do but dwell on what happened, what’s going to happen. Now I’m doing something about it all.”

Rinaldo comes up beside him. “I know she wouldn’t want you to get hurt. But Billie was always a ‘seize life by the balls’ kind of woman. So I guess she’d want it this way.”

Then they’re silent for a brief moment, and she pulses in Daud’s hands.

_ ‘He can be trusted today,’  _ Billie says.  _ ‘But I can’t say for tomorrow. He tries to quell the rage that builds up when he thinks of her face, thinks of the injustice of it all. But the seeds of anger grow jadedness and hate. Only time will tell how it changes him.’ _

Daud swallows.

Rinaldo turns his head, looks Daud square in the eye. “I know I might not be allowed to know this, and that’s fine, but...do you have any word on Thomas? Is he alright?”

Daud nods. “Yeah. He’s with us.”

All the tension instantly floods out of Rinaldo’s shoulders. “Fuck, thank the Outsider.” He shrugs, looking sheepishly at the ground. “We were told to stop looking for him but, you know, that can be taken in two ways.”

“He’s okay. Shaken up a bit, but okay.” Daud could really go for a cigarette right now, but he knows Rinaldo’s quit and he’s not going to be that asshole. “Probably studying right now. Got his work cut out for him.”

“He’ll do good though.” Rinaldo nods. “He’ll do real good. Make her proud.”

Billie’s eyes are still set on him, but she no longer vibrates in happiness. Now her energy comes off the Talisman in waves, slow and thoughtful. Mournful.

_ ‘His heart hurts. He swears to expunge his last breath to avenge his Empress. But when he’s alone and the rage cools, he weeps. He misses her fiercely. His...his best friend.’ _

Billie had touched so many lives. And Delilah had ruined them all.

Daud is going to make her  _ hurt  _ for it.

 

* * *

 

Thankfully, Rinaldo doesn’t question how exactly Daud and Lizzy are traversing the rooftops. Daud figures he’s probably heard about Billie’s adventures, running across rooftops late at night, getting her much-needed breath of freedom while Daud lurked behind her, watching. Though she didn’t know about that last part. Billie did shit like this for fun, without the aid or security of magic. Rinaldo would assume that Daud could do it too. He’s the one who taught her how how to move like that, after all.

He finds Lizzy sitting on a rooftop with her mask off, glaring at the brick wall opposite the street. Daud Blinks beside her.

“Rinaldo will meet us at the control station, in front of the entrance. He can get in with his timecard, but we’ll need to find another way in,” Daud says, staring at her curiously. “What are you looking at?”

Lizzy shakes her head. “Nothing.” She gets to her feet, not looking at Daud. He turns his head and spies the graffiti, written once over like the one in the Distillery District, then crossed out with a different shade of white.

 

**LONG LIVE THE EMPRESS!**

And under it,

**_she was a wench!_ **

 

“Idiots.” Lizzy makes a big show of rolling her eyes. “Couldn’t even come up with a good insult for her. Dunno about where they come from, but from here to Morley all it means is ‘girl’.”

Daud’s hands curl into fists without him consciously making the decision to. He didn’t fucking care about the word used-if he thought about it, he might have come to the conclusion that they were making fun of her low-born birth mother, insinuating that she wasn’t truly nobility. But it didn’t matter. The specifics didn’t fucking matter.

How  _ dare  _ they?

Billie had given them  _ everything _ . Her childhood, her energy, every bit of her being poured into being the Empress she thought her people deserved. Gave her very  _ life.  _ She cared so deeply for the most downtrodden of her citizens. Literally cried for them at times, like when she first learned of the plague.

And this was how they repaid her? By defacing a memorial meant to honor her, by calling her names? The disrespect for their Empress...the lack of respect for  _ her  _ who deserved it most of all.

_ ‘Hatred and anger, they are never satisfied. The corruption here beckons us. Will we give in?’ _

“I’ve been seeing shit like this popping up a lot lately.” Lizzy’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts, as she points to the graffiti. “Not the...you know, ‘wench’ part. But the other bit.” She narrows her eyes. “All the same writing. It’s from a stencil. Seen her portrait on the walls too. Too widespread to be the same person doing it all, but I can’t figure out why they’re all using the same design.”

Someone is blanketing the city in Billie’s name. A year ago, the Daud he was then would have been grateful. Now it reeks of suspicion. And if Daud had to guess, he’d pin this on Delilah as well. Probably a smear campaign against him. Remind the people of their dead Empress to relight the rage towards the man that killed her. Once she had Daud’s head on a spike, then the graffiti would disappear, and Delilah would resume trying to take Billie’s place in history.

She would only get that chance if Daud let her.

“We need to move on,” Daud says, pointedly looking away. “Before Rothwild heads home for the day.”

They clear the rooftops, keeping an eye out for guards. When they near the slaughterhouse proper, Daud kneels down to survey the yard, trying to find Rinaldo’s meeting spot. Lizzy jerks her head to the side so suddenly it almost startles Daud.

“What?” He stands up. “Is there someone over there?”

Lizzy doesn’t turn back. “I...thought so?” She shakes her head. “I could have sworn I saw someone up on that roof.”

She points, and Daud presses his lips together.

“Guess it could of just been a bird,” Lizzy shrugs. “Don’t listen to me. I’m tired and I’m low on sugar.”

Daud stares at the empty spot, as if willing the phantom bird to make a reappearance. Billie breaks his train of thought. Daud thinks she’s giving insight on his current situation at first, but of course not. She never tells him what he wants to hear.

_ ‘There’s a man out on the river, watching the place,’  _ She whispers in his ear. He can almost hear the laughter in her voice in her next sentence.  _ ‘If I weren’t so young and pure of heart, I’d suggest he’s up to no good.’ _

Right. He always teased her about the throne making her go soft, more out of silliness than real criticism. Now she’s throwing it back in his face. Same old Billie. Always.

“I need to look into something out on the river,” Daud says, and he points to a building in the slaughterhouse yard. “Go meet up with Rinaldo and wait for me there.”

“What the fuck are we gonna do, twiddle our thumbs?”

“Talk about your mutual love for naked women, I don’t know. I’ll be along shortly.” 

He Blinks away.

From the rooftop of a building in front of the wall of light, he sees the boat. Daud pulls up his handkerchief and Blinks out, misjudges the height and falls maybe ten feet onto the boat, landing on two feet and one hand. He pushes himself up angrily as the man in the boat startles back.

“Holy shit!” he yells, neatly falling off his seat. “You’re...you’re, fuck, are you the Butcher?”

“Close.”

Daud squares his shoulders and looks him straight in the eye. The man slowly lowers his arm, shaking all the way.

Daud realizes that, while his hair is different and his eyes have never been noteworthy, his scar is recognizable across the Empire. 

“Then you’re the other one.” The man’s voice trembles. “The Crown Killer.”

Daud stays silent. The man starts shaking his head.

“Fuck, please, don’t kill me. I have nothing to do with the Empress and the Regent-that’s all above my head. I’m small-time.”

“I believe you,” Daud says, making his voice as rough and scratchy as possible. “I need information. Why are you out here?”

The man pushes himself up, grips one of the oars as if he could row away from Daud if needed. “I’m working for Jack Ramsey. Or...I was. Amelie Ramsey will be taking over now, I guess.”

“Get to the point.”

“Right. This strike? All our doing.” The man almost smiles, but then nervously looks away when his eyes get close to Daud’s face. “We have a mole on the inside. Been stirring up the workers for weeks now. Her name is Ab-”

“Ames,” Daud grunts.

“R-right,” he gulps. “She’s a firecracker, that one. Could lie to the High Overseer’s face and get away with it.” The slight smirk he has drops. “I was supposed to pick her up when this business was over, but I came to get her as soon as I heard Ramsey was dead. Only I haven’t seen her.”

“You wouldn't have. She’s been detained.”

The color drains out of the man’s face. “Fuck.”

Daud nods. “Yeah. Shit situation.”

The man shakes his head. “You have to get her out of there. I mean...if you find her.” He cocks his head. “You’re going to kill Rothwild, aren’t you? I don’t know why-not that he doesn’t deserve it, but he seems to be in good with the Regent.”

“That’s why I’m going after him.” Daud wants information more than he wants Rothwild’s blood. But if he’s an ally of Delilah’s, Daud has no problem killing him. Better to pluck the weeds now.

The man gapes, and Daud can see the points connecting in his big, dull eyes.

“Oh. You’re not working for her.”

Daud stares him down. “No.”

“You’re doing this for  _ her.” _

“The Crown Killer acts  _ for  _ the Crown.” Daud sheaths his sword, which seems to slightly alleviate the man’s anxiety. “I draw blood in the name of Empress Billie Lurk, who’s no longer here to enact justice herself, and for the protection of your rightful Emperor.”

“Her brother? That kid’s alive? Fuck, why are we dealing with this Regent then?” The man shakes his head. “He’s old enough to rule, isn’t he? I mean, even a kid on the throne would be better than Kaldwin.”

“It’s complicated.” Daud looks over the water, the whale oil lamps burning atop buoys and Dunwall Tower etched into the skyline. “But tell that to people when they ask questions about the Crown Killer. Have some patience. Things will improve.”

“Not everyone has the luxury of playing the waiting game. People are dying all over.” The man is looking down, but he looks up through the fringe of his hair to stare at Daud somewhat defiantly. “Sir.”

Daud knows that. And he’s doing his best to topple Delilah, put someone competent on the throne. Remove her draconian security measures. Focus on saving the city from the plague, and do it how Billie would have wanted.

“Do you and Abigail have somewhere to go, even if you find her?”

“Uh…” The man looks at his fingers, shakes his head. “Before we were going to lay low at Ramsey’s house. But I don’t think his wife knew anything about...you know, this shit. So we’re kind of shit out of luck.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Rinaldo probably knows someone, somewhere, that could hide them for a bit. He doesn’t know if Delilah will even care enough to pursue Ames, but in any case, he’d rather people have a safe place to wait out the Regency. “I’ll send Ames your way if I find her. Try to let you know if I don’t.”

“Th-thanks.” The man blinks.

He looks like he’s about to say something else, but Daud jumps off the boat without further ado. He dives deep, ensuring the worker can’t see him before he takes aim and Blinks to a nearby drainage pipe. Then he turns around and watches as the worker scans the water in confusion. 

_ ‘Yes. He knows who you are.’  _ Billie’s words make his heart stop.  _ ‘But he will pretend he does not. His mother taught him to reward kindness.’ _

“No one would believe him anyway,” Daud grumbles. Billie hums in his hand, he imagines as if in agreement. 

Daud aims his Blink up to the balcony above, grabbing onto the bars and pulling himself up.

The blue and magenta uniform coat comes into focus as he climbs, and the guard jumps backwards when Daud appears out of nowhere and hauls himself over the safety rail.

Daud quickly sweeps his arm into the guard’s stomach, putting one foot on the ground and tilting his torso down just so to flip the guard over his shoulder, over the railing.

There’s barely a scream as the guard falls, his body wetly smacking against the drainage pipe and sliding off to fall the last thirty feet, only for the waves to dash him across the rocks.

Blink, and it’s gone. The guard jumps back again, his mouth open and ready to scream.

Daud leaps off the railing. He hits the guard at such an angle to push him back, so Daud’s body weight sends him to the concrete floor of the guardhouse instead of the loud metal grate of the balcony. The guard hits the back of his head on the ground, and Daud grabs him by the temples and slams his head down once more to knock him out.

He puts the guard to sleep with his laudanum as he drags him into a corner, behind a desk where nobody will see any stray legs. Then Daud bars the door. The guard will be able to get out fine-when he wakes up. By which time Rothwild will have outlived his usefulness and Daud, Lizzy, and Rinaldo will all be gone. And Daud is still wearing his handkerchief. The guard didn’t see his face.

After looting the room for anything interesting or expensive looking, Daud retreats back out to the balcony and pulls himself onto the roof. He could theoretically Blink on top of the pipelines and head straight for the meeting spot, but he didn’t want to slip on whale oil or risk some rusted metal creaking. It would probably be easier to approach from outside the yard. There were a few guards wandering around. Best not to draw their attention at all, if he wanted to avoid killing them. Daud cuts through a window into an adjacent building, intending on coming out the other side of the wall of light. He nearly falls back through the window when a figure literally appears right fucking next to him.

“Shit!” He grabs the side of the window, checking behind him to ensure that none of the guards had heard him scream like a little bitch. “Granny? What the  _ fuck?” _

Granny Rags stands by the stove, still wearing that hideous coat and a necklace of dazzlingly bright amethysts. She shakes her head at Daud, seemingly unfazed by his appearance.

“Why must you use such language, love?” She grabs a pot from the stove, moving it to a large stone plinth in the middle of the room. Daud can hear the liquid inside boiling, and Granny wears nothing but torn fishnet gloves over her hands. He doesn’t understand how she’s not burning herself. He also doesn’t understand how this slab of concrete got up here in the first place.

He’s still half out the window, gripping onto the frame to keep from falling out, his legs awkwardly splayed apart because he’s just too stunned to close them. Granny doesn’t pay him a lick of mind.

“I was just thinking of a fun activity I wanted us to do together,” Granny says, licking her lips. “Everyone else just wants to ignore poor Granny. And nobody appreciates my work at home but you. And the little flowers, but they’re just saplings now, need to sprout.” She turns to Daud, her blind eyes finding his face far too quickly for his liking. “You’ll entertain Granny, won’t you dear?”

Daud tries to swallow, bring some moisture back to his dry mouth. “Um.”

Granny shows off her perfectly straight, blackened teeth. “I have a birthday present for you when we’re done.”

“My birthday was in the Month of Rain.”

“And everyone missed it!” She sweeps away, fiddling with something on the counter.

They really didn’t. The guards made sure to let him know it was his birthday. They beat him extra hard that day.

“I have a little spell we’re going to try out,” Granny continues, coating her fingers in something red. “To start, I need you to get me a weeper.”

Daud locks his knees and places a hand on his blade, trying to give his appearance the confidence he didn’t feel. “Those are dangerous, Granny,” he warns.

Granny just waves her hand. “A dead one. Just a bag of bones, poor things. Weeper, weeper, weeps no more.”

“I have shit to do.”

He’s startled when Granny brings her fist down on the plinth. “Weeper, weeper, weeps no more!”

Daud holds his hands up, looking behind him through the open-ass door to the balcony that looks over the street. “Alright, I’ll get you your weeper,” he whispers. “Just keep it down!”

Granny smiles hungrily. “That’s a good dear. Hurry back, now.”

Finding a weeper corpse is easy. There’s death all over this city, sinking into the soil and permeating the air. Daud heaves the far-too-light body over his shoulder and grimaces. He knows by now that he’s incredibly resistant to the plague, if not completely immune. He drinks enough elixir anyway that he’s protected from the disease the corpse is carrying. Still, he wonders what the fucking point of doing this is.

On his way back he spies a small pile of fresh bodies, hidden from view behind a dumpster. A few guards, at least one butcher. Daud presses his lips together and vows to strangle Lizzy. The wall of light is off too. Somebody was going to investigate, sooner or later.

Granny just continues whatever bullshit she’s got going on the floor when Daud Blinks back in, so he has to stand there awkwardly with a dead man slung over his shoulder. “Um, I got you-”

“Shh!” She raises her red fingers to him without looking up from her work. “Just a moment, dearie. Just one last…”

She straightens up. “Done!” Granny gets to her feet, dusting off her imaginary skirt as she steps back. “Weeper, weeper, weeps no more! Laid to rest on blood-etched floor!”

Daud moves around the plinth to find that the floor was indeed etched in blood. He’s assuming it’s blood, at least. Strange letters and drawings, all arranged in a neat circle. Daud doesn’t know whose blood she used. He doesn’t want to ask.

He shoves the corpse down in the middle, glaring at it when it doesn’t do anything.

“Is that it?” he grunts. Granny Rags shakes her head.

“The port side eye of whale, newly dead. Plop it in the pot, grisly and red.”

“You want me to get you a whale’s eye?” Daud stares at her. “Is that what you’re asking?”

“Are you not venturing into the lair of the whale-slayers?”

Well that was one way to put it. “Are we done then?” Daud groans.

Granny nods. “Yes, and then the ritual will be complete.”

“Good. Go wait in Lizzy’s boat and we’ll give you a ride back home.”

Granny tries to grab at Daud’s coat as he walks away, and he raises his hands. “I’ll get the whale eye if I see it, alright? Just go. I’ll see you there.”

It looks for a moment like Granny Rags isn’t going to listen to him, but then she smiles.

“That’s all I ask, dear,” she coos.

And then she disappears.

Literally.

Daud blinks. Stares at the spot on the floor she used to occupy. Then he turns away and thinks it might be a mercy that he never watched his mother get old, see her grow into a hag. If she had turned out anything like Granny, he’s happier not knowing about it.

 

* * *

 

Daud creeps up on their pre-approved meeting spot, taking care to keep his steps light. The rooftops here are made of thin metal, and any sound they make echos something terrible. He’ll have to make sure Lizzy knows.

He’s still fucking pissed at her.

They’re camped out in the control station, backs against some machinery as they watch out through the broken bars of the window, smoking. Daud tiptoes to the slate in the roof above them.

It smells like pine trees, and skunk. Daud wrinkles his nose.

“So can I ask you something on the level here, Rin?” Lizzy takes a long drag. “What was the deal with you and the Empress?”

What deal? What  _ deal  _ could they have possibly had?

“What? We were friends.”

_ “Just  _ friends? You didn’t like her any more than that?”

Daud hunkers down and goes still, quiet as to eavesdrop more efficiently. 

Rinaldo laughs, but it’s a muted thing. “Let’s just say I loved her, but I wasn’t  _ in love  _ with her. You know what I mean?”

Lizzy exhales a dragon’s breath of smoke. “So you wouldn’t fuck her if you had the chance?”

“No, I mean, if she had been down with it, I would have. But it would probably be weird. Unless the sex was  _ really  _ good.”

Okay, this was amusing until they had to make it awkward.

“It was weird the first time I fucked my best friend too, but we got over it. Then I realized I was too gay for him.” Lizzy flicks some ash onto the ground. “The Empress was some hot shit, though. I would have  _ loved  _ to bury my face in those knockers.”

“Hmm.” Even from Daud’s vantage point, he can see Rinaldo press his lips together in annoyance.

Lizzy, either not noticing or not caring about Rinaldo’s discomfort, torques her body to look at him full-on. “One more stupid question. Daud? Did he ever fuck her?”

Daud is tempted to jump down and sock her in the face as a response, but Rinaldo’s laughter cuts him off.

“Fuck, Daud?” Rinaldo shakes his head, still smiling. “He was basically her dad, ‘specially after the old Emperor kicked it. I don’t think Daud thinks with his dick at all, to be honest.”

“You sure he has one?”

“I’ve seen him without pants on, so yeah, I’m sure.” Rinaldo shakes his head. “I mean I’m pretty sure he’s still a virgin.”

Well, he got one wrong. But his other two answers were correct, so Daud can let it slide.

“Yeah, I figured it was something like that.” Lizzy slides her ass down even further. “I just-I heard shit, you know? About Daud touching her when she was younger, visiting her at night and shit.”

“He kinda had to, you know, go in her room. I did too. It wasn’t like that at all.”

“I know that. And I know you can’t trust the rumor mill, but there’s always some truth to that shit.”

“He would be the last person to worry about there. If anyone tried to touch Billie or her brother, Daud would probably cut their hand off and feed it to them.”

Damn right. Rinaldo was so getting a pay raise when they get back.

Lizzy laughs. “Thought as much. Just...wanted to be sure, you know? Hard to get a good read on them. He never talks about her.”

He doesn’t? But once Daud thinks about it, Lizzy was probably right. It sounds odd to him because he thought about her constantly. She had been his entire life. Her and Thomas. He thought about them all the time while sailing around the Isles, trying to keep his spirits up. Taking care of and protecting Billie had been his purpose in life for so long. Now there’s a black hole where her presence had been, a hole Daud wonders will ever be patched.

Maybe that’s why it was hard to talk about her. Because that would be skirting the edge of that hole, risking falling in.

At least Thomas, rescuing him and protecting him, caring for him, that did something to occupy Daud’s hands and mind. A distraction. It was something. A something that would fill the rest of his days.

“I can see that.” Rinaldo takes a drag and makes a face. “Daud’s never been a big talker. And he’s still hurtin’.”

“He’s not doing good,” Lizzy remarks sullenly. “And I understand, you know, torture and all, but I don’t even think it’s about Coldridge. It’s about  _ her.  _ He’s not even starting to get over her.”

“Does anyone ever really ‘get over’ the death of an Empress?” Rinaldo blows out smoke, looking thoughtful and strangely philosophical. “Fuck, I still hurt thinking about it. Most days I can’t believe she’s really gone. This is honestly the first time I’ve really talked about her since she…since she died.”

“Drugs are awesome, aren’t they?”

Rinaldo laughs, but his face turns somber again in a moment. “I keep wondering, you know, what if she hadn’t given me that day off? I basically stepped in for Daud while he was gone, but on the day he was due back, I went on a fucking lunch date.”

Daud honestly hadn’t even noticed Rinaldo’s absence at the assassination until now. It was true that Rinaldo had taken over Royal Protector duties, but with all the excitement of seeing Billie again and then...everything that happened after that, the fact had completely slipped his mind.

“I wasn’t even there,” Rinaldo continues, gesturing with his hands while his smoke dances through the air. “My brother was stationed right by the patio where it happened and he was ordered to step away, but, like, Kaldwin couldn’t have given me orders. I could have stayed. I might have helped. She might not have died.”

“Or you could have died too.” Lizzy sighs out a cloud of garbage-smelling smoke. “Or you might of kicked a rat corpse over and slipped the assassin up before she made the killing blow. Who fucking knows?”

“Outsider, maybe,” Rinaldo mumbles.

“Ain’t my point. You don’t fucking know what would of happened because it’s not what happened.” She inhales deeply, waiting a full beat before blowing it out. “What happened is she died. End of story. Let the past lie and let homegirl have some rest.”

Rinaldo lets out a bitter half-laugh. “Dunno how she can, with shit being what it is, but I like the idea. Billie being at peace. I just really hope she’s not seeing what Kaldwin’s done to her city.”

Daud feels the Talisman pulse in his hand, but he does not press back.

“Wish we could get some of that,” Rinaldo softly continues. “Some peace. Everyone’s so afraid now. Is...is it true about Daud? The Crown Killer thing?”

“Thought that was pretty much debunked.”

“It was. Because everyone thought he was  _ dead.” _

Lizzy shakes her head. “If I tell you it was a team effort, would that makes things worse or better?”

“Fuck, Stride.” Rinaldo leans forward and rubs his temples, somehow managing not to set his hair on fire.

“If it helps, we only actually killed Timsh and Abele. I dunno where the rest of these murders are coming from.”

Rinaldo sighs. “I knew I didn’t like that look in Daud’s eye. He’s always been sort of impersonal, but he looked just...”

“Ruthless? Intimidating?” Lizzy tries. “Super badass?”

_ “Cold.” _

They smoke in silence for a minute, before Lizzy snuffs hers out. “Kay, last question. Is Thomas really his kid or not?”

“That, I do not know.” Rinaldo snubs out his own joint. “I know I said he’s probably a virgin, but that might be jumping the gun a bit. Thomas is probably the result of the only lay Daud ever got.”

“He’s not.” Daud folds his arms, standing at the entrance to the control booth. “I’m not.”

Both Rinaldo and Lizzy jump. “Fuck, Daud.” Lizzy hauls herself up faster, probably due to having less body weight to pull up. “How long were you listening?”

“Long enough.”

“Jackass.”

“Bitch.”

They glare at each other for a long moment, while Rinaldo half-crouches and stares between them oddly, as if afraid to fully stand and interrupt their line of sight to each other.

Daud finally breaks the stare. “Why the fuck are you doing drugs while we’re on a mission?”

“I never trust anyone until I get high with them.”

“You’ve never gotten high with me before.”

For a moment, Lizzy looks as if she’s unsure of her place in the universe. “Fuck.”

Daud rolls his eyes. The Bond would counteract some of the drug. Lizzy’s complained about needing more alcohol to get drunk before-she wasn’t too high to go on. He was more concerned about Rinaldo.

But it would have to do. Not like they could leave and try again later.

Daud cocks his head and regards Lizzy coldly. “So what’s up with the pile of corpses out there?”

Lizzy shrugs. “I got bored, so I started without you.”

“This isn’t funny, Stride.”

“It’s okay.” Rinaldo raises his hands. “There were a few workers locked up. They’d have been executed if we left them-we just cleared them a path, that’s all.”

“More people are dead now because of it.”

“Yeah, but they started it.” Lizzy puts her hands on her hips. “They goddamn chose to come here and be assholes. Those workers didn’t.”

Daud suppresses the urge to groan. She had a point-it would be very easy to see the killings as a positive thing. And it well might be. Those guards and butchers could have killed and ruined other lives before meeting their end somewhere else.

But that’s a dangerous way to think. Daud and Lizzy have already left quite a number of corpses in their wake. A lot of them probably deserved it. Some didn’t. He has a feeling that killing more of either will make telling the difference that much harder. 

“You think you can meet us near Rothwild’s office?” he asks Rinaldo, who blinks a few times as if his eyesight was impeding his hearing ability, then nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can let you in. I know where he keeps his keys.”

“Good.” If he could just keep Rinaldo from having to fight, this would probably be fine. His coworkers wouldn’t care he was high. “Lizzy and I will meet you there as soon as we can.”

Rinaldo blinks at him a few times. “Have you figured out how you’re gonna get in? There’s people checking time cards at the door, you can’t-”

“We’ll find a way,” Daud assures him, then grabs Lizzy by the arm. “Come on. We have some infiltration to do.”

Lizzy doesn’t talk to him as they Blink over to the docks, where Daud swears he saw a loading dock earlier. It’s certainly there, he sees, high up in the air with no obvious way to get there from the ground. It’s for loading large cargo ships, with hulls so large the deck wouldn’t meet up with the dock. Again, Daud doesn’t see how they could steer into port, since the water level here was so low. This set-up would make sense if it had been built on the ocean side, to take advantage of the tides, but it was built on the river. And the river was swelling as of late. The water was normally  _ shallower  _ than this. 

“I don’t get what you’re so worked up about,” Lizzy complains as Daud surveys the wall. “You kill tons of people.”

“Not right now, Lizzy,” he says through gritted teeth.

Daud could probably get up to the dock through some clever jumping and Blinking. But if he couldn’t clear it, the fall could very well hurt him. He doesn’t think he can Blink far enough into the water to clear the shelf, and the water wasn’t deep enough to keep him from breaking his legs. Lizzy almost certainly wouldn’t be able to swing it. She couldn’t jump nearly as high as him, even with the bonecharms he secretly sewed into her jacket lining.

There was a crane set up nearby. Powered down, but that could be fixed.

“We’re going to need some whale oil, Lizzy.”

Lizzy seems to perk up finally. “Lucky us; we’re right where they extract the shit. And I saw where they keep the barrels.”

They Blink over the low buildings, keeping an look out below for curious eyes. All the roofs are slotted, which makes it easy to spy in, but also allows the occupants to look up and see them. Annoying design feature. It probably worked wonders for ventilation in the summer, but it must be miserable now.

Daud Pulls a blueprint lying on the breakroom table to him while two guards chat away in the corner, and Lizzy nods appreciatively. “Cool. When are you gonna teach me to do that?” she whispers.

“If you can’t figure it out on your own, I don’t think I can help you.”

“Prick.”

They Blink to the last building in the row, and duck down when they hear the telltale sound of an arc pylon charging.

“Whale oil should be right beneath us,” Lizzy frowns. “But we’re gonna have to disable that pylon.”

Stupid fuckers for putting a pylon here. Whale oil was extremely volatile. If a bit of it caught just a spark from the pylon, it would ignite. And the rest of the barrels would be caught in the explosion. This entire storehouse would be wiped from existence if Daud and Lizzy caused that thing to go off.

“Wait.” Daud grabs the hem of her jacket as she begins to move. “I need to talk to you for a second.”

“What?” She crosses her arms, glares at him with fire in her eyes. She reminds him so, so much of Billie.

Billie, who’s seeing everything they do.

“Can we try to keep the body count down here?” he says. “The rats don’t need more bodies to feed on.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“Well, I do.” He huffs and glances away. But then he inhales, holds his breath, and lets it all out. “Do you really want to be the boogeyman for all of Dunwall right now? Do you want to become another Butcher?”

“So what, you want me to ask them nicely to step aside and smile when they shoot at me?” She stares off into the ocean, her mouth set and angry, but Daud can tell his words bother her.

“I’m not saying we can’t fight back,” he reasons. “Just...try to find another way. Please?”

He can’t remember the last time he ever used that word, outside of just trying to be polite to the servants. And it must get through to her. Lizzy deflates, the tension flowing out of her shoulders as she sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I can try.” She turns to him then, flashing a grin. “You gotta get your hands on another bottle of that knock-out shit for me, though.”

“Deal. I’ll ask Jerome to make some for you.” He turns back. “Now put your mask back on, loser, someone’s going to see you.”

Daud surveys the area with Void Gaze as Lizzy pulls her hood and mask back on. There’s indeed barrels of whale oil stored right underneath them, in addition to a few butchers who wander around the area, talking about the strike. The power source for the arc pylon is, unfortunately, right in its warpath. Daud  _ might  _ be able to yank it before it fires with the aid of Bend Time, but he’d rather not risk it. If only he could completely stop time, like he saw the Rat King do in his dream. 

The song of bones again reaches his ears, and Daud whips his head around until he spots it. Daud’s off like a shot.

He Blinks carefully to stay out of eyesight, and far away enough from the arc pylon for it to pick up his signature. He has to Blink into the water and swim to get to the mouth of the drain, careful not to bang his head on the mossy, rotting underside of the dock.

Lizzy swims up beside him and hauls herself out of the water with considerably more grace. “Alright, you need to quit doing that. I’m not gonna stand there like some mourning widow waiting for you to return from war or something.”

“Then don’t.” He can see the bonecharm now, past the mouth of the drain.

Problem is, it’s all swarming with rats.

Daud Pulls a hagfish out of the water and tosses it in. He waits for the rats to swarm around their new meal and start devouring the hagfish alive to Blink in, scoop up the charm, and Blink back out before they notice the larger prey.

Lizzy’s shaking her head when he returns. “You’re obsessed with those things.”

“We all have our vices.”

“Yeah, but yours is fucking insane,” Lizzy points out. “Like, I’ll fully admit to being a drunk, but even I wouldn’t walk through a swarm of flesh-eating plague rats for a bottle.”

Daud rolls his eyes. “It’s not like booze is hard to come by.”

“Neither are bones. City’s full of them, now.”

Maybe someday Daud will sit Lizzy down and explain it to her. How the bones sing in his head. How he can hardly think when they’re near. How he  _ needs  _ to touch them, to know them, before they’ll be satisfied. But not today.

He scans the inside of the drain. “You know,” he says, pointing. “That tunnel right there, I’d bet a hundred coin that leads right into the killing floor.”

“Fuck, are you saying what I think you’re saying? We have to go through the  _ chum disposal?” _

“You have a water-proof mask on, Miss Stride.”

Lizzy groans. “Alright, fine, but just because I hope you get a face-full of guts.” She pouts so intensively Daud can practically see it through her mask. “How the fuck are we going to get past those rats?”

Daud grabs her hand. “We Blink, and then run very fast.”

 

* * *

 

They hear the whale before they see it. Rivers of it, running down the pipe, red and flecked with chunks of blubber and meat. Their boots squish as they wade through ribbons of blood.

“I’m never going to let you forget that this was your idea,” Lizzy mutters.

She’s one to talk. She at least has a mask, air filters that’ll block out some of the smell. Daud pulls his handkerchief over his nose to help, but it doesn’t do much. 

The smell is impossible to get around.

Daud’s glad he never worked in a slaughterhouse. Even if the pay was decent, there was no way the constant smell and coming home filthy could be worth it. But he’s never had to resort to this type of work. There was a time, in the period between taking in his streetrats and finding out Billie’s true origins, where he considered getting an actual real job instead of stealing. He had wanted a steady income so they could rent an apartment instead of squatting, send Thomas to a real fucking school. Let Billie work at a shop or something instead of pickpocketing so they could eat. Daud would have taken any job then to keep them from starving. But he never had to make that choice. 

That was probably the case with nearly every worker here. Just people, willing to do anything to put food in their children’s mouths. 

They duck low as they enter the killing floor proper, stepping swiftly to the side to avoid the waterfall of blood. Above them, a whale is hiked up on cables and chains, suspended mid-air as it bleeds its life out onto the floor. 

It’s still alive.

Even through the separation of the Void, he can physically feel Billie shudder.  _ ‘They don’t know what they are, do they? These creatures. I wonder, if they knew, would they feel guilt? Or only fear?’ _

He doesn’t know what the deal is with whales, doesn’t know a fraction of what Billie knows. And frankly, Daud doesn’t want to know.

But no creature should be subject to this.

“Fuck.” Lizzy peers up into the slit belly of the whale, past the layers of flesh and red viscera. They can see its goddamn organs, still writhing and alive. “I knew it wasn’t pretty, but this,” she whispers, shaking her head. “This is a whole new level.”

Daud presses his lips together in agreement. A pair of butchers round on a worker at the head of the floor, and Daud and Lizzy go still as they watch.

“You been in the chair already?” One hisses, brandishing what looks like an automatic saw. Daud’s seen the gardeners at Dunwall Tower use something similar to trim hedges. But he figures this one worked a little differently.

The worker raises his hands. “Yes, but I signed right away. Mr. Rothwild didn’t even have to turn it on.”

“I don’t believe you!” the butcher bellows.

“No, it’s true!”

The other butcher turns to his friend. “Is he calling you a liar?”

The butcher with the saw steps towards the worker. “That’s what it sounds like!” There’s a whir as the saw starts up. “I’m gonna teach you to respect me!”

Daud meets Lizzy’s eye through the yellow of her goggles, and they nod to each other. An understanding that flows deeper than words. Daud raises his Marked hand and pulls it down.

Time slows around them, the butcher moving towards the worker as if walking underwater. Daud reaches out and Pulls the saw from the butcher’s hands before it can make contact with the worker’s chest, letting it drop harmlessly into the pile of discarded whale flesh. His feet move quickly up the floor, Blinking to a nearby awning that looked over the killing floor and sending a bolt into the head of the other, unhelmeted butcher. The force sends his body into the scraps of guts and blood below.

Lizzy, who is able to take advantage of Daud’s Bend Time power, Blinks herself up to the ledge where the butcher is still startling back over his disappearing saw. She inserts her blade in between his helmet and chestplate, pushing him over the side with his friend before Blinking to Daud’s side.

When time resumes, they just watch the worker look around, frightened and confused. Lizzy would have only been a blur to his senses. Finally, he just turns and begins to walk away at a very, very fast pace.

Lizzy chuckles from behind her mask. “What happened to mercy, old man?”

“Not to people who won’t show it themselves.”

“I can fuck with that.”

The rest of the butchers in the area don’t even notice the absence of the two. Their bodies are quickly covered with blood, and soon there is no distinguishing them as human beings within this mess of gore.

_ ‘Oh, darling, you are frightened!’  _ Billie speaks in his ear, but it’s a voice that has never been used for Daud. It’s melodic, kind, closer to the tone she reserved for Thomas when he was very young, or the one she put on as Empress when dealing with petitioners.  _ ‘I’m afraid there is no escape. I know that pains you so.’ _

The whale shudders out a noisy, grunting breath, a different sound than the pain-filled moans it’s been putting out since Daud entered. She flicks her eye, turning and settling on him. Daud stares, and wonders if the whale can really hear her.

_ ‘I know. It hurts. Oh, my love, I’m so  _ **_sorry_ ** _.’ _

“That power system there-” Next to him, Lizzy points. “-looks like it’ll put that whale down in an instant.” They watch for a moment as the whale bellows, her breath blowing in their faces. “I almost think we should. I know they’re just beasts, but…” Lizzy gets to her feet, not looking him in the eye. “Still.”

_ ‘They are so much more than beasts,’  _ Billie whispers in his ear.

Daud has to brush her off. “Maybe later. Don’t risk pissing off the butchers until we get what we came here for.”

Lizzy doesn’t look happy about it, but she Blinks away.

Billie continues to blabber on to the whale as Daud surveys the floor, making his way to the observation deck. 

_ ‘Yes, he will. I will tell the others, so they don’t worry.’ _

He wants to tell her to shut up. That he’s trying to concentrate, and he can’t think about the stupid whale right now. But she’s Billie. And Daud could never reject the gift of her voice.

_ ‘Be strong. We will end your pain.’  _

So he listens. And he’s left privy to one side of a very strange conversation that he never wanted to hear.

_ 'No, don’t say that now. I will earn your forgiveness.’ _

It’s odd. Daud’s almost grateful when he Blinks too far away from the whale for Billie to continue talking to her, but she just turns the onslaught to him.

_ ‘This didn’t have to happen. There could have been another way. But now she is here, and there is no turning back from what we’ve done.’ _

What did she want, for them to ban whale oil? As much as Daud didn’t approve of all this, he knew you couldn’t do that. Even Delilah couldn’t do that. Angry mobs would literally tear Dunwall Tower apart, brick by brick, carry out whatever sovereign who had made that decision and set them on fire. Billie, of all fucking people, should know that.

Rinaldo isn’t here. Lizzy is pawing around, looking for keys and valuables. An audiograph plays in the corner, Rothwild himself rambling on about the lullaby of the whale songs.

Daud’s sailed before. He knows the song of the whales, the rumbles that rise from the sea water and reach the ears of men above. He’s also heard them how they are in the Void, melodic and pure, reaching across the empty space. He knows how they’re meant to sound underwater, through Billie’s strange insight that sometimes gives him snippets of sound and feeling. He knows how the whalesongs are supposed to sound. And he knows that this whale is not singing.

She is screaming.

“Where’s Rinaldo?” Daud asks to Lizzy’s backside.

She shrugs, not even pausing in her search.

Daud huffs. “Have you seen him at all?”

“Nope. Place was empty when I got here.”

“I’m going to go look for him.”

“You do you.”

Daud rounds to Packing and Distribution, where he knows the entrance lies. Rinaldo is speaking with a few workers, ducked out of sight of the butcher stationed at the door, checking time cards.

The carts he mentioned are already set up, filled with all manner of bones. Daud Blinks down and sifts through them as he watches Rinaldo, waiting for him to finish. Most of the bones are too large for his purposes, but there are a number of smaller bones and bits that have chipped off the larger pieces that Daud is easily able to stuff in his coat. He’d have to come raid slaughterhouses more often. His supply of whalebone is skyrocketing, and it made hardly a dent in the pile.

He Blinks up to the rafters, keeping an eye on Rinaldo and his group while he surveys his surroundings. Empty cargo crates, oddly small for a slaughterhouse. Six feet long and rectangular, padded interior. Like a coffin.

Daud’s seen these before. Crates meant for human cargo. Gangsters liked to use them when they didn’t feel death was a suitable sentence for their marks, for whatever reason. Knocked them out and packed them up, then ship them off to somewhere far enough away there’d be no chance of them coming back. Tyvia was a popular destination. They were also used for gathering slave labor, usually in the mines.

A group had once kidnapped Billie and tried to seal her in one of these. Daud still doesn’t know why-the penalty for kidnapping a princess was the same as killing her. And Daud hadn’t been with her at the time, so they could have killed her very easily. But their decision gave Daud time to find her, and for the guard to arrest the conspirators. They had intended to send her to Pandyssia. Billie had been trapped for less than an hour, but she still had a paralyzing fear of tight spaces for literally years afterwards. The Emperor had everyone involved executed.

Rinaldo finishes with the workers, then he marches over to the butcher at the door with them trailing behind him like frightened ducklings. Exchanges a few words with the butcher, then they both step to the side. The workers each punch out and exit out the door.

Cute. Daud doesn’t have time for this, though. He returns to the observation station, careful to avoid the butchers wandering the hallways, to find Lizzy lazily reclined in a chair with her feet up on the desk, spinning a set of keys around on her finger.

“Didn’t even need Rin,” Lizzy exclaims proudly. “Fucker had his keys hanging on a nail on the underside of his desk. Rookie mistake.”

Daud just blinks, his sight flicking between Lizzy’s masked face and her feet. “Lizzy,” he says slowly. “Where are your shoes?”

It’s then that Rinaldo bursts in. “Sorry, sorry,” he pants, his cheeks tinged with red. “Some guys were stuck in the breakroom when the lockdown started. Too scared to sign the contract-had to sneak them out.”

“It’s fine.” Daud holds a hand up. “Lizzy got her hands on the key. You want to show up where Rothwild’s office is?”

“Sure, sure.” Rinaldo holds out his hand for the key, which Lizzy tosses at him unceremoniously. “We’ll have to sneak in there. Rothwild’s demanded not to be disturbed. The butchers’ll stop us.”

“Then let’s not get stopped.”

Two minutes later, Rinaldo is crouching and fiddling with the key, cursing under his breath, while Daud and Lizzy keep an eye on the lone butcher wandering the hallway below and hope he doesn’t turn his head.

_ ‘Rothwild’s got a stubborn reputation,’  _ Billie echos in his head, as Rinaldo pops the door open.  _ ‘I doubt asking nicely is going to work.’ _

Her voice drips with poison. There’s something dark in what she’s implying. Daud finds that he doesn’t like dwelling on it.

“I keep telling you! This is about fair pay and safe conditions!” A woman’s voice rings out as they creep into the office, hiding behind large filing shelves that split the room in half. They’ve found Ames, at least. “You’ve had two people die in just this last week!”

“Don’t bother with the theatrics.”

Rothwild’s voice is low and rolling, smooth like he’s swallowed an entire jar of honey. Daud pulls himself onto one of the shelves and peers over to the other side of the room. Rothwild, decked out in a fancy beige suit that would make Daud immediately loathe him if he didn’t already, stands in front of a chair, occupied by a woman with auburn hair and a blood-stained vest. Her eye has been blackened; her lip swollen and still bleeding. 

“What happened, Abigail?” Rothwild says, puffing on a pipe. “I gave you everything. Extra elixir rations, bonuses-”

“Gave me everything but your ear,” Abigail bites back.

“Oh, don’t give me that bull.” Rothwild blows a cloud of smoke into Abigail’s face. “You were working with Ramsey from the start. All of it-motivating the workers, getting close to me, it was all for him.”

“Rothwild...Bundry…”

_ “Don’t  _ call me that!” Rothwild explodes, slamming his pipe down on a nearby desk. “You’ve lost that privilege! I trusted you, Abigail, I  _ loved  _ you!”

Abigail crosses her arms and tilts her chin up, staring down her nose at Rothwild’s disheveled, angry form. “Bundry, you don’t love anything but your coin.”

Rothwild curses. And he flies forward. He smacks Abigail across the face then slides one knee over her lap, leaning in on it to keep her sitting. Abigail protests, and Rothwild grabs one of her wrists as she comes up to bat him in the face. His other hand comes to her jaw.

“Get away from her!” 

Rinaldo has already jumped the railing, brandishing his butcher’s cleaver. Daud curses under his breath. He wasn’t about to let Rothwild assault Ames, but he had a more discreet way of stopping him in mind. They wouldn’t be able to take care of this quietly now.

Rothwild actually pulls back in surprise, and Abigail twists around in her seat. “Gale?”

Rinaldo stammers a bit at first, his face going red, but he gains more confidence as he goes on. “Leave Abigail alone. You will let her walk out of here unharmed, and you won’t bother her again.”

Rothwild laughs, dark and sadistic. “Really?” He pulls out his pistol, flipping the safety off as he aims it over Abigail’s shoulder, directly at Rinaldo’s chest. “And what’s stopping me from just killing you and doing what I want anyway?”

“Me.”

Abigail’s eyes find him before Rothwild even begins to turn his head, and the sound that she makes crosses somewhere between a shocked gasp and the scream of scraping metal. Rothwild whirls around, and he actually drops his gun in shock.

“Daud.”

Rothwild blinks. His hands still in position to fire his gun, but his gun is on the floor and he makes no move to pick it up.

Abigail hides her face in her hands. “What is  _ he  _ doing here? Was the Empress’s blood not enough for you?!”

“Calm down,” Rinaldo says to her, but his eyes never leave Daud’s. “Daud didn’t kill the Empress. He’ll help you out.”

“How in the world do you know that, son?” Rothwild grabs Abigail and pulls her out of the chair, scooping up his gun as he backs away. “He was found with her blood on his blade. He killed another bleeding-heart woman, just like you-” He gives a pointed look to Abigail. “-and he just might do it again!”

Daud stares him down coldly.

“Oh, Void, here we go…” Lizzy drawls, perched atop the shelves and swinging her leg.

“I didn’t kill the Empress.”

“First of all, my name is Rinaldo Escobar,” Rinaldo explains angrily. “I was a guard at Dunwall Tower for years. I  _ worked  _ for this guy. Second, I was one of the few people who was trusted with Empress Billie’s safety.” Rinaldo audibly cracks his neck, raising his cleaver threateningly. “In other words, you don’t want to fuck with me. Third, don’t  _ fucking  _ call me son.”

“I’ll call you whatever I fucking want!” Rothwild yells, waving his gun in the air. Abigail yanks her arm away and breaks free of his grasp.

“Kill him, Daud!” she begs, raising her hands to her chest. Rothwild moves to grab her back, but she swiftly steps out of his reach. “Whatever you want from him, I can give you.”

“I need information,” Daud says. “On a few matters, regarding ‘Bundry’s’ dealings with the Regent.”

Abigial nods excitedly. “I know about all that. I know  _ all  _ of Bundry’s secrets.” She turns back to him, her smile sickeningly sweet.

Rothwild’s upper lip curls and he snarls, flipping his gun around in his hand and raising it as if to hit Abigail with the butt. Daud brings his hand down and Slows Time, leisurely walking over and sucker-punching Rothwild in the temple. He drops his gun again, stumbling a bit in real time, and Daud wraps one arm around his neck and uses his other to press the bottle of laudanum to Rothwild’s nose. Then Daud drops him.

Time resumes. Rinaldo blinks, but that’s all the indication that he’s noticed something is off. Daud had taken care to move slowly. To Rinaldo and Abigail, his movements would have been fast, but not  _ supernaturally  _ fast.

Abigail calmly steps over the body, plopping herself back in her interrogation chair with utmost grace.

“Well?” She says, crossing her legs and placing her blood-splattered gloves daintily in her lap. “What do you want with me?”

“Well, for starters, a night out on the town.” Lizzy hops down from the shelf, landing like a cat. “I’m thinking dinner, maybe a nice dance in the moonli-”

Rinaldo rushes forward, kneeling by Abigail’s side and taking her hand. “Are you okay?”

Abigail preens and nods, and Daud internally rolls his eyes. Great. Rinaldo’s sweet on her. Well, he never was the brightest lantern on the path.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Rin,” Lizzy says. “Your lovebird act is going to get old real fast.”

Rinaldo sweeps to his feet. “This isn’t an act!”

“Look, I know what I’d do for a great pair of knockers, but trust me, no girl’s worth embarrassing yourself. Even a pretty lady like this.”

Abigail curses under her breath, looking up to meet Lizzy’s eye with fire in her gaze. “Dyke,” she mutters.

Lizzy visibly bristles up, marching forward as if she was going to throw down with Ames right then and there. Rinaldo, however, stands between them and holds up his hands. “Ladies, ladies…”

“Call me that one more time and you’re gonna get shanked.”

“That’s enough!” Daud yells, and Rinaldo pulls back, looking somewhat embarrassed. 

Lizzy huffs under her mask, and if Daud didn’t know her better, he’d say she was jealous.

“You said you had some information we needed,” Daud presses, bringing the fight to a definitive close. “I need to know about a witch going by the alias ‘Gardenia’.”

Abigail pulls her hand back from Rinaldo, her smile calm and collected. “Not so fast. I said I’d talk if you killed Rothwild. And Rothwild is very clearly still alive.”

“Rothwild is insurance, in case you turn out to be even more of a lying whore than you’ve already proven to be.” Lizzy crosses her arms, fixing Rinaldo with what could only be a withering glare under that mask. Rinaldo just glares back, and Lizzy turns to Daud. “I spotted a makeshift interrogation room in the meat locker earlier. We could always just shove Rothwild in his special electric chair. Make him squeal like a pig.”

_ ‘Amazing, what suffering people will endure in the name of an honest wage,’  _ Billie says evenly.  _ ‘Desperation saturates this place and others like it.’ _

“Lizzy, go lock the door,” Daud motions, sending Lizzy away with a pout. “Rinaldo, tie up our friend Rothwild here. If our talk with Miss Ames here goes well, we can always throw him into the river.”

“I rather like the sound of that,” Abigail says, leaning back in her chair. “I know all about Gardenia, including their true identity. I can tell you everything you want.”

“Please do.”

“I told you, not so fast.” She smiles, showing off her teeth. “I need something from you in exchange. We’re both professionals, Mr. Daud. I think we understand each other.”

He’s always disliked people who called him that.

“I don’t think we’re on the same level as one another, Miss Ames.”

“I suppose not,” she shrugs. “I was hired to undermine Mr. Rothwild’s business. You were hired to kill an Empress. If anyone is able to take the high ground here, it would be me.”

Daud stares at her for a long moment, then darts out and wraps his hand around her throat. Abigail’s eyes bug out as he leans his face in, so close his breath ruffles her hair, squeezing just enough for her to feel it.

“I didn’t kill Billie.”

“Daud.” It’s Rinaldo behind him, his tone warning but in a sort of disbelief.

Lizzy has returned by now, pulling off her mask and hopping up onto a desk. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve been through this old man. Let her go so we can get this over with.”

Daud fixes Abigail with a glare as he steps back. “Never insinuate that I would hurt the Empress again. Delilah Kaldwin killed her. End of story.”

“I-I got it,” she says, her fingers dancing at her throat. But then she swallows, pasting on another smile and continuing on. “Like I said, I was hired to get Rothwild’s workers striking, which I did very nicely, and then to destroy the slaughterhouse itself.  _ That’s  _ where I got caught, and where I’ll need your help.”

She pulls out what looks like a large screw with two handles built into the side, grinning at him all the way. Daud stares at her without taking it.

“How?”

Her smile falters, but only slightly. “The whale oil in those tanks out there are enough to destroy this entire place. The important industrial bits, especially. Just open all the valves at once to let the oil start flowing. The pressure will go out of control, then.” She leans forward, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Boom.”

“What about the workers inside?” Rinaldo asks, still on the floor behind Daud.

“The butchers can die screaming for all I care.” She waves her hand.

“But there are workers still stuck in here. You can’t leave them to die.”

“You know,” Lizzy makes her way over, peering down at Abigail with her chin raised high. “Instead of doing your job for you, we could always just put you in Rothwild’s chair yourself.”

“You wouldn’t.” Abigail shakes her head.

Lizzy nods. “Daud and I, we may not have killed an Empress, but you still don’t want to fuck with us.  _ Trust  _ me.”

Abigail rises to her feet, swanning towards Daud with a smile on her face. “You don’t know Ramsey,” she breathes. “He’ll come for me. And when he does, he’ll kill you.” Her fingers wind Daud’s handkerchief, still tied around his neck. “He’ll gut you like the street filth you are.”

“Jack Ramsey is dead.”

The smile slides off of Abigail’s face. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. The Butcher gutted him this morning.”

Abigail’s face goes absolutely white, and she sinks back into her seat. Puts her head in her hands.

“What am I going to do?” she moans. Off to the side, Lizzy shrugs.

“What we say?”

“I’m dead,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I’m so dead.”

“You would be if we hadn’t gotten here,” Daud grumbles. 

Rinaldo leans into his peripheral vision for the express purpose of glaring at him.

Daud rolls his eyes. “A buddy of yours is parked out in a boat, on the seaside. Scrawny kid. Sort of blond. Needs to trim his ear hair.”

“Jonas?” she asks, raising her head. “Why? If Ramsey’s dead…”

“Yeah, yeah, then your big paycheck goes down the chum drain,” Lizzy says. “No reason you need to blow this place up now.”

Abigail shakes her head. “Oh, I’ll be paid either way. It’s all set up in Ramsey’s books-looks legitimate and everything.” She presses her lips together, he eyes far off and afraid. “But that won’t matter if I’m not alive to collect it. Lady Kaldwin will be furious when she finds out about this.”

_ ‘She learned very young that the only person looking out for her interests was herself. She doesn’t feel guilt for the people she hurts. But she gets no enjoyment out of it either.’ _

“Where were you planning to go before?” Rinaldo stands off to the side, a good five feet away from Abigail, as every step closer to her brings a round of glares from both Daud and Lizzy.

Abigail thunks her head in her hands again. “Ramsey’s mansion! We would live there until he produced new identities for us. His wife wouldn’t know about it-and I doubt she’d believe us if we showed up on her doorstep.”

Rinaldo stares at them with big, pleading eyes. “We can’t abandon people out here, guys.”

Daud shrugs, crossing his arms.

“You two are part of some conspiracy, aren’t you?!” Abigail jolts up. “What are you supposed to be doing, bringing down the Regent? I can help with that! I have talents you can use, if you let me. All I require is a safe place to wait out the plague.” She brings her clasped hands to her face in a pleading gesture. “Please?”

Lizzy has shuffled to his side by now, crossing her own arms and mimicking Daud’s pose. They both draw themselves to their full heights, which isn’t really very high, but Abigail’s seated position allows them the illusion of towering over her. Lizzy flicks her eyes down to Abigail, watching her as if she were a piece of garbage that smelled particularly bad.

“I don’t know if she’d really fit in back at base, Daud,” Lizzy drolls. “We might be too gay for her. Pretty much every girl there is a lesbian.”

“Lots of lesbians,” Daud agrees.

Abigail’s eyes dart between the two worryingly.

Lizzy faux-sighs. “Besides, it’s a much  _ rougher  _ crowd that what Miss Ames is used to. I don’t know if she could keep up.” She shakes her head. “No, I just don’t think it’s in the cards. Sorry, Abigail.”

“Oh for the love of…” Rinaldo looks at them with disgust, then turns back to Abigail. “I’ll find you and Jonas a place to lie low for a while.”

“You will?” Abigail presses a hand to her heart. “Oh,  _ thank  _ you.”

Rinaldo grins like a stupid idiot. Daud reaches out and whacks him across the back of the head.

“Provided we all survive this, of course,” he says, then turns back to Abigail. “Now that we’ve got your housing situation all figured out, will you comply?”

“I still need the facility destroyed if I want to get paid.”

“Motherfucker!” Lizzy reaches out, her hands moving as if she’s about the strangle Abigail, though she remains rooted in place. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you bitch? Trying to count your chickens while you make scrambled eggs.”

“I’m a business woman.” Abigail raises her chin defiantly.

Daud sighs as he rummages through a nearby desk.

“So...what now?” Rinaldo asks. “Are we destroying the tanks, questioning Rothwild? ...Daud?”

“We’re taking our options as they present themselves,” Daud says. “And right now, since we have Rothwild tied up so nicely and he has that fancy interrogation chair all set up for us, we’re going to take advantage of that.”

“So you’re not going to help me.” Abigail huffs, crossing her arms. “I could have made it worth your while, but fine. Just let me out so I can do my damn job and get out of this hellhole.”

“Not so fast.” Daud holds up a hand, stepping towards her. “I’m going to need you to attend Rothwild’s interrogation with us.”

Abigail raises an eyebrow. “I’ll bite. Why?”

“In case he turns out to be useless. Then we’ll consider your option.”

That makes Abigail smile. “Well, I _ have _ wanted to see Bundry shackled up in his own chair for a while now.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Daud smiles, then holds up a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around.”

The smile drops off her face. “What?”

“Daud, is that really necessary?” Rinaldo steps in. Daud nods, grabbing Abigail by the wrist and wrenching her hands behind her back.

“She’s proven to be deceptive and evasive. I can’t let that stand.” Abigail groans as he snaps the cuffs around her wrists. “It’s just a safety measure. I’ll take them off once we’re done.”

Rinaldo presses his lips together, but he says nothing.

“I think silver bracelets look lovely on you,” Lizzy says in a sing-song manner. “Goes perfectly with your pasty complexion.”

Abigail opens her mouth to retort, but Daud slaps his hand over her mouth. “Knock it off, or I’m going to start knocking heads together.” He turns and pushes Abigail in Rinaldo’s direction. “You keep her under control. If I can’t trust you with that, I’ll have to give her to Lizzy.”

Lizzy grins and stretches out her fingers, waggling them obnoxiously. Rinaldo looks down at the ground. “I’ll keep her quiet.”

“Good.” Daud turns and thunks Lizzy on the head. “And you,” he hisses in a harsh whisper. “Behave yourself! You’re an adult woman, for Outsider’s sake, start acting like it!”

“I have never acted like an adult a day in my life,” Lizzy states factually, but she does put her mask on and starts standing like a normal fucking person.

Daud steps away long enough to sling Rothwild over his shoulder. “Rinaldo, pretend like you’re taking Ames to be interrogated. Lizzy and I will follow from above.”

“The pipes again?” Rinaldo grimaces. “You see how much dirt was up there? That’s gross.”

Lizzy mutters something her breath. Daud just nods and adjusts Rothwild’s position. “Rin, lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

They watch Rinaldo talk to the butchers, one hand on Abigail’s handcuffs as she hangs her head and watches the floor. The butchers seem to be buying the act, at least. Not that it was ever going to be particularly hard to fool them.

Lizzy points to one of the butcher’s saws. “I  _ want  _ one of those.” Daud rolls his eyes.

They straighten when they see the butchers walk away, leaving the area unattended. Rinaldo unlocks the meat locker and pulls Abigail in. Daud and Lizzy Blink and slide in right behind them, before the door even has a chance to close.

Rinaldo lets go of Abigail and steps away. “Okay, we’ll have to let Daud in when he gets here, then he can unlock your cuffs.”

“Already here.”

They both jump. “What the fuck!” Rinaldo slaps a hand over his heart. “How’d you get over here so fast? Did the butchers see you?!”

“Calm down, Rin-boy.” Lizzy smacks his shoulder as she passes. “We’re just  _ really  _ good at what we do.”

“Lizzy’s right,” Daud says, then hands Rothwild over to Rinaldo.

Lizzy grabs Rinaldo’s key from his belt, the smirk on her face audible through her mask filter. “I’ll make sure we get to  _ enjoy  _ this.”

Daud presses his lips together.

He undoes Abigail’s handcuffs while Rinaldo gets Bundry Rothwild situated in the chair. Daud saw something similar at the Golden Cat-though he’d bet this one packs more voltage. Or maybe not. Maybe Rothwild was bringing masochists down to get their rocks off.

Doubtful, though.

They all stare at one another, once Rothwild is in the chair and everyone is in position. Lizzy at the electrical switch, Abigail sitting on a bench off to the side, Rinaldo above her still holding his cleaver in one hand. And Daud in front of the chair, in the role of interrogator.

Rothwild is still fast asleep.

“Any requests as to how we wake him up?” Daud asks the room. Lizzy’s hand twitches over the switch. “Lizzy, no. Save that.”

“I think I have an idea.” Abigail gets to her feet, flouncing over to the interrogation chair as if her feet were made of flower petals. The movement reminds him so much of Delilah, mocking him as he sat in the torturer’s chamber at Coldridge. Daud wills down the goosebumps that break out over his arms and pushes away the urge to crush her skull.

Abigail stares down at Rothwild for a long moment then, so fast Daud almost doesn’t see it coming, rounds back and punches Rothwild right in the groin.

Rothwild’s eyes shoot open. And he howls.

“He’s awake, alright,” Abigail says blandly, shaking out her hand as she returns to her seat. Rothwild looks around the room wildly.

“What the fuck?”

“Rise and shine, Bundry,” Abigail calls over her shoulder.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Rothwild tugs on the manacles connecting him to the chair.

Daud regards Rothwild coldly. “We need information.”

Rothwild seems to calm then, settling back in his chair as a neutral expression slides over his face. “What do you want to know that’s worth crossing a man like me?”

“You’re nothing special, asshole,” Lizzy says, examining the nails that are hidden under her glove. “You bleed red like every other fucker I’ve cut open.”

Rothwild spits at her. He’s not very well-practiced, though, so it lands on his coat sleeve and he stares at it in disdain.

Daud ignores the exchange. “I want to know about a ship.  _ My Gardenia.  _ What’s behind the name?”

“Go choke on your bitch’s cock,” Rothwild spits, turning to glare at Lizzy in turn.

Daud nods to Lizzy. She pulls down the lever, and the seat and back of the chair glows blue.

Rothwild screams. Lizzy pushes the switch back into neutral.

“Who is Gardenia?” Daud continues on, as neutral as ever.

Rothwild is breathing hard, but he still makes the effort to laugh. “You think I’ll give up after the first tickle? That’s the kind of thing I pay your mother for, down at the Golden Cat!”

Daud bypasses Lizzy and pulls the lever down himself. More electricity, more screams. Across the room, Abigail’s hand comes over her mouth. Rinaldo just shakes his head.

“We’ll feed you through your own factory,” Daud says, never breaking eye contact. “See if we can get oil out of your blubber.”

“Ha.” Rothwild’s eyes take a moment to focus on Daud, foaming at his lip. “I can see how you butchered an Empress now. Cruel. You’re good at what you do. We can talk this out, Daud. Like businessmen.”

“Delilah killed Billie. Which you, a supposed ally of hers, should know.”

“I do know.” Rothwild glares at Daud through the sweaty strands of his bangs, breathing hard. “I know how you pursued her. How she only loved Lady Delilah, how you wouldn’t accept that. And I know how you tore her open and left us with this crazy witch in charge, and now she’s going to be the death of us all!”

Lizzy flips the switch as Daud motions her to. Rothwild screams yet again, his body convulsing. His eyes roll into the back of his head and his spittle flies from his mouth. Daud can see the perspiration, how his neck bulges with fat and how his shirt collar cuts into it, leaving behind an angry red imprint on the flesh. Pig. Filthy pig.

“You…” He trails off, staring dully into the corner before he can swallow and start again. “Your little wife here loves her work. I can tell.”

“Did you just call me his wife?” Lizzy takes her hand off the switch, moving it to her hip. “Because that’s fucking hilarious.”

Daud doesn’t even look at her. “Gardenia.”

“Right. Right.” Rothwild nods. “Like I said. Kaldwin’s a witch. Gardenia is as well.”

“We knew that before we came here. What are they working on?”

“Fuck if I know,” Rothwild spits. “They ask for whalebone, I give them whalebone. Kaldwin asks for blood to make paints? I give her the fucking blood. You don’t deny the Lady Regent.”

“Really? Because that’s exactly what I did, and I turned out just fine,” Lizzy says.

Daud ignores her. “Where is the rest of their coven?”

“I don’t know that either!” Rothwild yells. “Half in Dunwall Tower-been completely overrun since the Empress died, flowers everywhere, a nightmare for a man with allergies. The others are at some hideout, with Gardenia. They only talk to Kaldwin and Luca, when he was alive, and the Chief Alchemist. I don’t know where the hideout is, only that it’s in Dunwall.”

“I could have told you that. Nobody can leave Dunwall.” Daud shifts on his feet. “You still haven’t told me Gardenia’s true identity.”

Rothwild laughs bitterly. “Even if I told you, the name would be useless to you.”

Lizzy’s hand hovers over the switch again, but Daud waves her off. “Stop. Let’s regroup,” he says, turning to Rinaldo. “Discuss our findings.”

They leave Abigail sulking in her seat, Rothwild still strapped to his chair. Lizzy locks the door behind them and they duck under some machinery, Rinaldo leaning back periodically to check for patrolling butchers.

“Why’d you stop me, old man?” Lizzy accuses. “I was having fun.”

Daud shakes his head. “This is going nowhere. Rothwild doesn’t know anything-he’s not part of the inner circle. He’s just a supplier she’s trying to keep happy.” He huffs. “This was a waste of time.”

“Not entirely,” Rinaldo says, smiling. “We can still get the name out of him. Might not be what we expected, but it’s  _ something.” _

“Yeah, Daud.” Lizzy stares at him through her mask. “Let me work my magic. Another shock or two and I’ll have him singing like a whale.”

“Uh, most of our workers have died after that many shocks, so…”

“Even better.”

Daud waves his hand to stop the argument. He can’t put it into words-why he doesn’t want to go down that route. How Lizzy’s frigid demeanor while she held down that switch bothered him. The way she watched Rothwild suffer without a hint of emotion in her voice. That with every mission they run, Lizzy got a little colder. A little more ruthless.

She likes wearing this mask. 

“No,” he growls. “We’ll appease him somehow. Shouldn’t be too hard to get Rothwild to give up the name.”

It would be harder than expected. Because as they re-enter the meat locker, Lizzy loudly curses. Daud looks up to find blood splattered on the floor, Bundry Rothwild slumped over in his chair with an iron screwdriver sticking out of his neck. Dead.

Abigail Ames stands in front of him, and she folds her hands very nicely over her bloodied vest. “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid that Mr. Rothwild is no longer with us.”

Lizzy curses yet again. Abigail starts rambling on about something, but Lizzy is on her in a second. She pushes Abigail to the floor and kicks her in the ribs, before turning and unlocking the cuffs keeping Rothwild’s corpse in place.

“What are you doing?!” Abigail cries as Lizzy grabs her by the collar, pulling her up and shoving her into the recently vacated seat. Rothwild’s body flops onto the ground, Lizzy’s heel digging into his hand as she pushes against Abigail and snaps the cuffs over her wrists.

Daud and Rinaldo are unable to do anything but stare.

“I’ve seen this work you know!” Abigail yells to her, as Lizzy turns back to the electrical switch. “I  _ know  _ how to resist it!”

“Good,” Lizzy snarls. “Then this should be fun.”

She pulls the lever. Abigail screams, and Daud is shaken out of his stupor.

He crosses the room in a fury as Lizzy pulls down the lever a second time. Daud grabs her by the midsection and pulls her back before she’s able to give Abigail a third shock. “No, no,  _ fuck  _ you Daud! She fucked with us! All to get us to do her dirty work for her!”

“Enough!” Daud roars.

Abigail’s head drifts around in a circle, as if she’s unbearably dizzy. “Oh, that...hurt more than I thought.”

Rinaldo is just now approaching, his eyes still wide. “Abigail? Why would you do that to us?”

“To you?” she says, but her eyes are still unfocused. “This was between me and Bundry.”

Lizzy makes as if to jump Abigail’s bones, but Daud pushes her back. “Stop. We can work this out.”

“How, by blowing up the damn factory for her?!” Lizzy yells.

Maybe. Maybe that would teach Lizzy some restraint. That they couldn’t just torture people into submission.

That’s what they were doing to Rothwild.

Rothwild was a sadistic pig of a man. What they did to him wasn’t torture; it was justice.

Abigail is a harpy. A chameleon of a woman, manipulating and self-serving. But she isn’t evil. She killed a man who had abused her. Daud would want Lizzy to do the same, if she was in her position. 

The marks on his skin, the hot irons in Coldridge Prison. The near-drownings. The starvation, the beatings, the days and days where he wasn’t allowed to sleep…

_ No. _

He’s not doing that to another human being. Not without cause. And he can’t find enough of it to justify doing this to Abigail.

Daud turns to her, purposely keeping his face as neutral as possible. “Tell me Gardenia’s true name.”

“If I tell you,” she says carefully. “You’ll just kill me.”

“You’re going to fucking die either way,” Lizzy mutters, but Daud holds up a hand to stop her.

Rinaldo shakes his head. “If she dies, the secret dies with her. Stride, it’s not worth it.”

“Rin, calm your balls. There will be other bitches to sink them into!”

“We’ll do it.”

They both stop short, turning to stare at Daud, who stares Abigail down as he continues to speak.

“We’ll destroy the slaughterhouse,” he says. “And then you’ll give us the name. We’ll let you walk away from this. Does that sound fair?”

Abigail nods, almost dreamily. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.”

“Fair?!” Lizzy shrieks. Daud just steps forward and lets Rinaldo deal with her. He’s not in the mood to control Lizzy.

“I’m going to leave you in this,” Daud says, tapping his finger on the chair. “Until you tell us that name, though. If you tell us now, I’ll let you go and do as you ask. I’m a man of my word.”

“I don’t trust you.” Abigail shakes her head. “I’ll wait. It should take about fifteen minutes for the pressure in the pipes to reach a critical point-and you won’t get that name until you let me go.”

“Deal.” Daud leans forward. “May I get the key from your pocket?”

In the background, Lizzy scoffs. Abigail just laughs. “A man asking me where he can put his hands-now I’ve seen everything.”

 

* * *

 

Daud instructs Lizzy and Rinaldo to clear the slaughterhouse. Hopefully everyone would leave when the alarms sounded, but he didn’t want anyone left behind, to die in the chaos. Not if they could help it.

He stresses that they are not to kill anyone unless their lives depended on it.

Daud watches the hallway from above, kneeling on the oil pipeline, hot enough he can feel it through his trousers. A few butchers still wander about, their saws drawn. Must be heavy as hell.

_ ‘They’re armored in front,’  _ Billie tells him.  _ ‘But not so tough in back.’ _

He can hear her smirk at the implication. It’s useful information-just not the kind he cares for Billie to concern herself with. As Empress, she wouldn’t have looked at her subject’s uniform and immediately searched it for weak points. (well, maybe she would have, but for defensive purposes) She would have noted how the steel aprons and helmets with the faceguards would protect the workers from bone shards and other hazards of their jobs, minimizing injury. She would have picked on the face that they wore no neck protection, that there apparently was no standard footwear and that some wore shoes more prone to slipping than what should be acceptable, than what was safe.

She’s looking at the world a different way. If it were someone else, Daud would consider that a good thing. But there was nothing wrong with how Billie saw things before. He loved the way she saw challenges as opportunities to test her skills, how she saw flaws as details to improve. He admired it.

Now, she thinks and sees just like him. And Daud never wanted that for her.

The butcher passes by his perch, and Daud turns to examine his back. The armor stops at the shoulders, but a large backpack covers much of the unprotected cloth and flesh. A backpack, Daud notes, holding tanks of whale oil. Another hazard that Billie would have found issue with. But for Daud, they’re large grenades on the backs of his enemies. They would get in the way of choking the men out, but could be detonated easily.

Hopefully something he wouldn’t need to exploit. But it was there, if he did.

He’d prefer to not be seen. Daud doesn’t want to tangle with the butchers at all-those saws were made to cut through meat and bone. His own armor was meant to absorb impact, not deflect it. It would be little protection against the whirling blades. Even a drop-attack on a butcher carrying a saw was too dangerous to attempt.

According to Abigail’s explanation, there were four valves he would need to open. Two in the hallways surrounding Rothwild’s office, one in the area where they kept the live whale, and one on the Butchering floor, where the whalemeat was shorn from its bones.

Daud Blinks around in the circle, planning out his route. He likes having definitive plans for things, especially if they’re time-sensitive. He  _ could _ think on his feet, had to with a skillset like his, but he prefers knowing where things are. Makes things easier. More reliable. Once the valves were opened, he couldn’t afford to be slowed down. He couldn’t afford to fuck up. Just like he couldn’t screw up while protecting the Empress.

The whale is just as loud as always, back on the killing floor. Daud tries his best to ignore her as he watches the butchers, trying to memorize their patterns.

_ ‘She mourns. She will never see her family again.’ _

The whale would die when the factory went up in flames. It would be a half-hour, at max, until her suffering was ended. Wasn’t that good enough?

No, and Daud knows it. The whale might be cooked alive by the flames, but her thick blubber would insulate her organs from the heat. Keep her alive,  _ feeling  _ herself bleed and burn. The factory collapsing might do her in, the fall from the ceiling and the tons of brick and concrete that would crush her. But a creature this size, it might not. She might be left in the rubble, suffering for hours.

If Daud had to choose, and Billie had to die, he would have wished for something faster. Something less painful. In her sleep, perhaps. Even a direct headshot or a knife to the throat, as messy and unfitting that would be, would at least have been fast enough that she wouldn’t have realized what was happening. Might not have had the time to feel pain. Daud doesn’t wish for poison, though. They’ve both been poisoned before, him several times, and though they were always treated in time, they weren’t experiences Daud would wish upon her. Upon anybody.

_ ‘Why have they been made to suffer like this? Who deserves this unspeakable horror?’ _

No, Daud would put this whale down now. That was kind. That was  _ right. _

Checking as one butcher ascends the steps and leaves the power box unattended, Daud Blinks over. He’d need two barrels of whale oil to give this thing enough power to kill the whale in one blow. The first he Pulls towards him. The second proves trickier. There are several barrels on the other side of the floor, Daud can see, but they are too far away.

He Blinks to the other side, not even wasting the time to check the other butchers’ positions. He grabs the tank and throws it with all his might, Blinking again as it arcs through the air and catches it again. He shoves the second tank in and hears the system hum with power.

_ ‘Just a little longer. It will be over soon, my dear.’ _

Daud checks once more to ensure the coast is clear. He Blinks to the controls, looking up into the whale’s eye one last time. She stares back, sorrowful and understanding. He mumbles “I’m sorry” under his breath and hopes she’s heard.

Then he pulls the lever.

The whale shrieks with pain, electricity sparkling at her eyeballs and her flippers flailing about. She gives one last heave, then her mouth flops open. And she hangs in the air.

_ ‘Rest well, little one,’  _ Billie whispers.

Daud grimaces as the butchers rush over to examine the whale, prodding her blubber and bitching about how it wasn’t time for slaughter, they still have oil to extract and the carcass was going to stink up the whole place now. The meat would rot before they could harvest it.

But she was silent. Daud’s ears ring with the absence, the lack of moaning he’s been hearing since entering this Outsider-forsaken slaughterhouse. And Daud isn’t sure what to feel now.

The butchers are still clustered, and Daud takes the opportunity to Blink over to the oil valve and get it flowing. He takes one last look at the dead whale, remembering Granny’s task. So when the butchers wander over to the power system, trying to figure out how it fired, Daud Blinks atop the whale, readying his sword.

Portside eye. Right. Daud isn’t a fucking sailor.

“Billie, which side is portside?” he whispers. She would know. She wanted to be a sailor.

_ ‘Ships always pull into port with the dock at the left side,’  _ she says. He moves left, and her voice comes wafting back.  _ ‘No, their left.’ _

“Be more specific then!” he hisses. He quickly jams his sword into the eye socket and works the eyeball loose. It pops as he pulls it out, shaking it free of discharge and shoving it into his pocket. It’s much smaller than he expected. Fits neatly into his palm.

From there, he makes his way to the Butchering floor. Less butchers wandering here, ironically, though that was probably due to there being no whale to butcher. Daud would guess that, in peak operation, there would be a whale in each of the stations. Up ahead, he can see where a partial whale skeleton sits for disassembly. Now only two out of the three stations are occupied, and there’s nothing but bloodstains here where a whale would sit.

It’s to Daud’s advantage. After he opens this valve, the alarm will go off. He’ll need to make a swift getaway.

He Blinks and slides down the stairs, huddling slightly so none of the butchers see his movement. This valve is under the whale dock, which makes him incredibly glad this station isn’t in use. He shoves the key into the valve and turns.

The alarms start blaring as soon as the valve is all the way open. Daud yanks the key free and shoves it back into his pocket, turning to leave.

“Hey, who the fuck are you?”

A butcher hops off the last step, his saw already spinning as he approaches. Daud waits. Watches as the butcher encroaches on him.

Then he Blinks. Puts one boot on the bottom step, torcs around and sends a bolt into the butcher’s oil pack with a snap of his wristbow. The canister of whale oil explodes, and the butcher falls face-down onto the bloody concrete. He doesn’t move. Daud turns and runs up the steps.

The factory is in pandemonium by now. Butchers running around, trying to figure out the source of the alarms. Whether because no one ever bothered to go over what the alarms meant with them or because the butchers are just that thick, Daud doesn’t know, but it’s no matter.

He Blinks to the back hallway and opens the last two valves in quick succession. Once the fourth is open, he starts his internal countdown. The slaughterhouse had emergency systems in place to handle an overflow-they will have kicked in by now, draining the excess oil away. Four open valves would be too much for them to handle, overload the safety protocol. Then the pressure would spiral out of control.

And Daud needs to be far, far away from here when that happens.

He returns to the meat locker, where Abigail still sits in the interrogation chair. She raises her head as he approaches.

“Took you long enough,” she laughs weakly. “Was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

“I’m a lot of things, Abigail, but I’m no liar.”

“Hmm.” She lets her head hit the backrest with a thunk.

Daud steps in front of her, absentmindedly kicking away Rothwild’s body. “Time is short. Tell me who Gardenia is.”

“Let me out of this chair first.”

He does. She should know, by now, that she couldn’t run away from him. Daud would catch her. She’d tell him her secret, or he’d put her right back in this chair. Leave her to die.

Abigail rubs her wrists as she gets to her feet. She bites her bottom lip, looking worried, but only for a brief moment. “Look, Bundry was right when he said the name will be of limited use to you. I know a name, but just the one.”

“One more name than we know.”

“Very true,” she agrees, looking almost chipper again. “if you’re really in this to take down that witch of a Regent, then all I can say is good luck. And I truly hope that this name is of use to you.  _ Ashworth.” _

 

* * *

 

Daud watches Abigail from above as she makes her way to the docks. He doesn’t really care what she’ll do now-Rinaldo will find her and Jonas someplace to lie low, so it’s up to her to stay alive. But he promised she’d walk away from this if she gave him the name. Daud keeps his promises.

The name he reflects on as he Blinks across the yard once again, as the slaughterhouse rumbles behind him.  _ Ashworth.  _ It’s familiar. A noble family, he knows it has to be. But he remembers nothing past that. No faces. Not even the memory of names on a guest list, scrawled in Billie’s weirdly uneven handwriting.

He could deal with it later, though. Once he’s back in Draper’s Ward. Someone would figure out the connection, and they’d go from there.

Daud pauses on top of the sign at the entrance to the slaughterhouse, scanning the yard. He saw few people inside, everyone already running for the exit. Hopefully the alarm would do as intended and get everyone evacuated before the whole facility went up in smoke. He turns and slips into Granny’s lair, a mere block away from the alley where he agreed to meet up with Rinaldo and Lizzy.

He drops the whale eye in the pot, grimacing a bit as it simmers. Then there’s a scream. A word in no language that has ever graced human ears, screaming like a overheated kettle. Unworldly and  _ inhuman.  _ And the stone plinth comes alight, a figure of bone forming from the flames.

Okay. The fuck.

Daud just shakes his head to himself, and plucks up the rune. It was Granny Rags. His life would be simpler if he didn’t allow his thoughts to linger on hers.

He slides the rune into his pocket, and a strange sense of uneasiness comes over him. Daud stands there, blinking, trying to determine the source.

Then it hits his gut.

There’s no way to explain it. No way to connect the symptoms, his racing heart and how the pit of his stomach drops out from under him. The panic. He just knows that she’s in trouble, Lizzy’s in trouble, he knows it and he knows where she is and  _ he has to go help her. _

Daud turns, ready to set out, when he feels something prick his neck. His hand comes up to feel it, his fingers closing around something long, hard. He plucks it, ignores the slight pain, and pulls away a dart with the last remnants of green sleep concoction rolling around inside of it.

His head begins to feel heavy, but besides that, there’s nothing. Daud’s been sleep-darted before, so he knows how it’s  _ supposed  _ to feel. It wasn’t working on him. The Mark worked against that as well.

The thought is barely finished before Daud’s vision goes dark. There’s something on his face, thick and scratchy, and he torcs his head back and forth to try and get it off. Whoever is behind him goes to work on pulling the bag tight over his head, tries to tie it off at the nape of his neck.

His hands are grabbed before he can reach for his sword, and his captors pull. One hand on each of his wrists, one on the outerside of his elbows, pushing and locking them in place. Daud struggles, but even with his unnatural strength, he can’t shake them free.

“The sleep dart had no effect on him.”

Their voices are stiff, droll. Muffled, as if they’re wearing masks.

The person holding his left hand pulls off his glove, runs their finger under the wrappings. “Woodpecker was right. The Outsider has chosen to Mark him.”

Daud listens carefully, then shifts his weight to punch out where he’s determined the voice to be. They dodge it, however. Easily.

“Put another two in.” It’s a female voice this time, to his right. “The King and Queen have tested this. It took three darts to properly subdue her Majesty.”

Daud would like to think it was his fighting instinct that allowed him to shake them off. That the fright of hearing that they had a way to knock Daud unconscious, combined with the fact that Lizzy was still slamming whatever panic button that was installed on their arcane connection, gave him the burst of adrenaline needed to break free. And maybe that was true. But for the most part, it was anger. Anger at the name, that they had the nerve to use that title. That  _ no one  _ had any right to be called  _ Majesty  _ besides the Empress herself.

Daud pulls his hand free. And  _ Blinks. _

His feet find air, and Daud falls. The landing knocks the breath out of him, but he can finally pull that accursed hood from his eyes.

The sky is bright orange, through the haze of smoke that’s beginning to settle over the district. Above him, three figures with beaked masks peer over the edge of the balcony.

Daud’s not stupid enough to try and fight them from here. They have the high ground-literally, in this case. He’d be at a disadvantage. But, as Daud grits his teeth, he almost doesn’t care.

He Blinks to the top of the entrance sign again, and before the Cardinals can react, he Pulls one from the balcony. The Cardinal seems almost surprised, head on a pivot, as Daud suspends them in the air. 

Another Cardinal appears to his right. Fine with him-he’d let their friend go. Daud releases his Pull and allows the Cardinal to fall.

He forgets that they can Blink, which the Cardinal does as their friend rounds on Daud. He parries, goes in for the stab, only to have the Cardinal waft away like smoke.

Daud turns, eyes scanning for another victim to appease his anger. He spies the last Cardinal, still waiting on the balcony, their sword drawn and dancing back and forth as if waiting for him.

Daud leaps off the sign. He goes in for the kill, his sword out and ready to shove through the Cardinal’s neck.

The Cardinal, who disappears into blue smoke and feathers the second before he lands. Daud catches himself, cursing as he lands.

Daud straightens up again, readies his sword, but no one appears to face him. He looks around, scans the area with Void Gaze just to be sure. But they’re gone.

The Cardinals are gone.

Daud grits his teeth. He wants nothing more than to track them, to hunt them down and rip their hearts out.

But Lizzy.

Lizzy’s in the alleyway, right where she said she’d be. Somehow, she ran into trouble there. Daud doesn’t know how. But he was going to find out. Help out.

“Why didn’t you warn me about them?!” Daud spits to her as he Blinks across the yard, intending on approaching from the rooftops. If Billie had told him about the Cardinals watching him, he could have killed them before they attacked. Could have gotten to Lizzy all the sooner.

_ ‘They exist in a place a fog. I cannot see through it. They are everywhere, and nowhere.’ _

Well, that was inconvenient. Fuck. He can’t be mad at Billie for it. He knows she tries her best.

Lizzy is close now. He can feel her panic, her fear, and if he listens hard enough he swears he can hear her thoughts, wondering where he is and why she can’t fight this off and if Daud will even bother saving her.

He steps across the rooftop, sliding through the space between two buildings. To his side, another piece of graffiti stands out. Billie’s face, her formal portrait, spray-painted over the frost-covered bricks.

Daud doesn’t allow his eyes to linger on it for more than the second it takes to confirm what it is. Billie is dead. He can’t save her. Lizzy needs his help now.

The sound reaches his ears before he sees them. Low, grinding, and painful enough he thinks his ears might bleed.

They have Lizzy. Three Overseers, all gathered around her. One busies himself cranking a large music box strapped to his chest. Her body hunched over, whether from pain or from the weight of the large butcher’s saw strapped to her back, he cannot say.

When Daud gets closer to the edge, it confirms what he already suspected. He knows what the Ancient Music is, what it supposedly does. And now he finds out that, unlike pretty much everything else the Abbey creates, it actually does what it’s intended to do.

It blocks his magic. Blocks Lizzy’s as well, if the way she cowers and shakes with her hands over her ears is any indication.

“You have long fingers, like a woman’s,” the Overseer in front of her remarks coldly. “I bet they break easily. Tell me of the shrines, heretic. Tell me about the blood rituals you perform to earn His favor.”

Lizzy doesn’t respond. Daud’s not even sure if she can hear him, with that music box right in her ear. Daud is twenty feet up and even his ears hurt from the sound.

There’s a snuffling sound. And Daud realizes that Lizzy is  _ crying. _

The rage carries him. Daud takes a few steps back, then sprints to the edge. 

He jumps. Fires one bolt into the music box, catching it in the gears and silencing the damn thing. He falls onto the Overseer who threatened to break Lizzy’s fingers. Pulls him back by the mask fastener to get to the fleshy part of his neck, and inserts his sword through it.

Lizzy snaps back to attention as soon as the music stops playing. She jumps and disappears into the air.

On the ground, the Overseer with the music box still puzzles over its apparent jam, trying desperately to pull the bolt out before Daud can strike again. Across the alley, the other Overseer readies a grenade. Daud merely slides forward when he throws it, passing the Overseer by, and allowing the grenade to bounce off the now-defunct music box and blow both the box and its player to bits. Before the remaining Overseer can turn his head, Daud springs to his feet and quickly slides his sword through the back of his neck.

_ ‘Always a pleasure, watching you work.’  _ Billie’s voice startles him as he ascends to the rooftops to check on Lizzy.  _ ‘Seems to me there’s always something more to learn about  _ **_pain_ ** _.’ _

His, if the pang in his chest was any indication.

Lizzy is standing on the rooftop above, waiting for him.

“I...thank you,” she breathes. Daud reaches forward and puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. We should go, though. In case their friends have hounds.”

The hounds would be able to find them over land, but they’d be lost once Daud and Lizzy are in  _ Melusine.  _ Daud shakes his head. When they’re safe, he intends to ask her how the hell she allowed herself to be captured. Tell her she’s only alive because Daud came to her aid. Remind her that he might not be there the next time she gets herself into trouble.

But this can wait. And, when Daud glances around, it’s not nearly his primary concern.

“Where’s Rinaldo?”

Lizzy is still breathing hard. “He went back for her,” she says without even a hint of resentment. “Abigail.”

Daud is going to strangle him.

“She’s out!” He throws his hands up. “I got her out, she went to her...the place is going to explode!”

“I told him.” Lizzy shrugs. “He was intent on it.”

Fuck.

“Go.” He motions. “Go wait in the skiff for me. I’ll go after Rinaldo.”

Lizzy disappears without argument. Daud allows himself exactly five seconds to huff and be angry about it. Then he’s off.

The drain would take too long, and he doubts Rinaldo is on the killing floor anyway. Daud rounds to the loading dock he saw earlier. He slips in and comes out above the packing area.

Rinaldo is wandering the area where they process the bones, seemingly oblivious to the bursting pipes rattling off in the distance. Daud lands and runs to him.

“What the fuck are you still doing in here?”

Rinaldo turns to him with a gasp. “Daud! I can’t find-”

“Abigail is with her friend,” he says harshly. “I said I’d let her go!”

Rinaldo at least has the humility to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I just thought-”

“It doesn’t matter, just get the fuck out!” Daud turns him around and shoves him in the direction of the exit. “We’ll contact you if we need you again! Just don’t fucking die!”

Daud turns to backtrack towards his entrance, only pausing to check and make sure Rinaldo is leaving. 

He’s not. Rinaldo made it about five steps before he stopped again. “Daud, where are you going?” He has to scream to be heard above the carnage, motioning behind him. “The exit is this way!”

Daud waves him off. “I’ll find my own way out! Don’t worry!”

The dock would be faster. And he risked being seen if he exited out the main door. 

Rinaldo still looks unsure, but he turns and hauls ass out of there. Daud waits until he’s sure Rinaldo’s actually left, pausing to examining the large industrial bone grinder built into the floor. All jagged teeth on metal gears, meant to tear apart and crush the hardest of materials in an instant. Talk about a safety hazard there.

Daud exits the facility for the final time. If the place isn’t empty by now, then whoever stayed behind fucking deserves to be left. 

Now he just has to Blink far enough to clear the coastal shelf, swim out to Lizzy’s boat. Daud takes a knee and scans the water, searching for the speck of grey and brown that was  _ Melusine.  _ He worries that Lizzy ran into more trouble. That she didn’t make it back to the boat. But then he spots the skiff, sees the blue of Lizzy’s coat and Granny Rags’s grey head. He stands up.

Then several things happen at once, too fast for Daud to comprehend.

There’s a hiss, high in the air, and a thunderous clap that nearly deafens Daud. There’s a burst of light reflecting against the river water, the same color scheme that makes up the evening sky only much, much brighter. And something hot against his back.

Daud is in the air. He tumbles forward, he sees his feet against the sky and notes that’s wrong somehow, and then he can look back at the slaughterhouse. The roof and about half the side wall is gone, replaced by a pillar of fire larger than any whale he’s ever seen. He thinks, as bricks and rubble rain down from the sky, that he can imagine the whale he just murdered in this. A mass of flames, a whale reborn in fire, rising up to take another bite.

Then he’s looking at the sky again. He’s too far up. He’s not going to survive this fall. Daud wonders if he should try to Blink, but to where? He’s remembering physics now, Billie’s fucking physics lessons, about the laws of motion and all that bullshit. No, he’s going too fast now. His velocity is preserved in his Blink-he’s tested this. All Blinking will do is bring him closer to whatever surface he’s going to splat again.

He shifts forward again, and he’s looking down at the water. So that, then. If he could figure out which direction to Blink to, he might be able to overshoot the coastal shelf. But would the surface tension of the water still kill him? Probably. He can’t really find the energy to try and find out.

His body is no longing arcing through the air. Now he’s falling properly, the water coming at him frighteningly fast but still so slow he has time to think on it.

Was this how Billie felt, falling to her own death? Daud’s thought about it a lot, even though he prefers not to. He wonders if she was conscious for this part. How much she was really aware of. Did she die like he’s going to, her body breaking against the rocks? Did she survive the initial fall, were her last moments spent under the water, filled with panic and lacking in air, floating in a cloud of her own blood? Or was the last thing she saw the blue summer sky against her shoes, blood loss putting her to sleep before her body even hit the waves?

Maybe he’ll ask her, when he sees her again.

Getting closer. Fuck, he broke his promise. Thomas will never forgive him.

This was fitting. A legitimate end to such an illegitimate person. His body cast into the Wrenhaven, just as Billie’s was, after setting alight a pyre worthy of an Empress. Something poetic about it. Maybe they’d write songs about the whole ordeal.

It’ll be fast, at least. And Daud hopes, selfishly, that it won’t hurt.

Did dying hurt? He should have asked her, when he had the chance. He knew she felt pain beforehand. As did he. Not enough, though.

It would be over soon. Maybe then Billie could be free. They could see each other again.

The water is almost at his nose. No, forget it. This was going to hurt like hell.

Daud braces himself as he hits the water. It feels like a cold kind of fire, like pouring vinegar on raw skin. Like a slap. 

The water does nothing to slow his fall. Daud plummets down and smashes his head against the rocky bottom of the coastal shelf. White fills his head, a searing-hot pain spreading over his skull.  Pain seizes up in his muscles and pushes his bones through his skin. For a moment he is a burst of fire, a human torch kept impossibly lit underwater, reality pulling him two ways. And Daud feels like a phoenix, alight and flying. Then, everything is black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, obviously he's not dead. We still have, like, two-thirds of the story left, so Daud has to live. Unless I throw a complete curve-ball and the rest of the story features Lizzy as an incredibly sarcastic and bitchy protagonist, getting steadily drunker. And being hella gay. But no.
> 
> Some other notes:
> 
> RINALDO MY BOY. I love Rinaldo so much. He's a good dude, just a bit of an airhead at times. I know canonically Billie wasn't that close to the other Whalers, but I felt like she needed a friend who wasn't either a smol child or a grumpy old man. Thus, she and Rinaldo were BFF's, being dumbasses and discussing cute girls. They totally smoked weed out on Billie's indoor balcony thing. (so her room didn't smell like pot) And yeah, you can ignore what Daud said about the subject last chapter. Daud's just being a Dad about it. Daud: "My perfect child doesn't do DRUGS!" Billie: ...'does drugs'
> 
> Anyone else sense some sexual tension between Rothwild and Ames? Just me? It felt like a relationship between the two was implied, however fake it would be on Abigail's behalf. Bundry went total Nice Guy here.
> 
> Did anyone else find it weird and out of place when Billie got captured by Overseers? She's built up as being this extreme stealth ninja who's used for reconnaissance because literally no one sees her until she wants to be seen, and then she gets caught and Daud has to rescue her. Like, even though she was the token Badass Woman, the writers still had to shoehorn her into a damsel-in-distress role at least once. The fact that she's seemingly the only woman in the gang makes it worse. I actually wrote a paper on sexism in this series a few weeks ago. The writers were clearly trying to improve on that front in the DLC's, but it ended up kind of backfiring in places. I'll give them points for trying, though.
> 
> This chapter should have been out a couple days ago, but I've been laid up in bed with the plague. And busy with work, because my bosses would rather I come in and infect everyone in the county than do the work themselves. I'd like to get the next chapter out before Christmas, but I have finals to work on and my work also increased my hours when I'm supposed to be working on finals. I'm really done with the restaurant industry, honestly. So yeah, that's where I'm at.
> 
> Kudos to the six people reading this. Love y'all.


	12. Spirit of the Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I mean, clearly, Daud's not dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gross descriptions of injuries and suicidal themes. This applies to the rest of the fic, really.
> 
> Also the first section is a really shitty musical. Sorry.

The sound of waves break against his ears, rousing him from his sleep. The creaking of a ship as it rolls along the water, the gentle hum of its engines somewhere below. If he listens hard enough, he can hear a whalesong in the distance.

And in the room, someone is humming.

Daud doesn’t want to open his eyes. He feels more relaxed than he has in decades. Maybe his entire life. Perfectly at peace. He’d be content to lie here, forever. But something tells him that he  _ should  _ open his eyes, see what’s waiting for him. So he does.

What greets him is the most beautiful sight he can imagine.

Billie sits in front of him, perched on a high stool and wearing a white pea coat, with her untamed mess of hair tucked into the hood. Her dark eyes are looking away from him, humming a tune under her breath.

Daud’s mouth goes dry. She’s breathtakingly beautiful, but what more, she’s  _ real.  _ Her skin has a few more blemishes to it, bumps and zits that her make-up usually covers. Lines from age, years she would never see taking their toll on her face. Her hair seizing up with the humidity. This isn’t a memory. She’s really here.

“Billie…”

Daud raises his hand, slow and careful, as if the illusion will shatter if he moves too fast. But of course his fingers meet the warm, soft flesh of her cheek, and she responds to the sound of her name, the hand on her face. Their eyes meet, and she smiles. Brings her left hand up to press over his own.

“Billie,” he says, so drunk on euphoria that he can barely get the words out. “Am I done, Billie?”

She doesn’t respond. Only continues humming away, her thumb stroking his wrist. Daud tips his head back and watches her lazily.

Nobody was quite sure what happened when you died. Sure, there was the Void, but people couldn’t wander the Void forever. Only the Outsider. 

Most thought that was really it. That once you fade from the Void, your consciousness fades with you. Energy flowing back into the ether, becoming nothing. It used to scare Daud when he was younger. As the years cut into him, and especially after everything with Billie, the concept of true nonexistence seemed more and more like a blessing. A relief. An absence in reality would also mean an absence of pain.

And if that’s what this is, if he and Billie are floating in the Void, steadily breaking apart and dissolving into nothing, well, he’s satisfied with that. There’s no more pain. And he was allowed to see her face one more time. That’s all he can really ask for, honestly. He has no regrets.

Lizzy would take care of Thomas. She’d finish the job Daud started, see Delilah burn and get Thomas on the throne. She would protect him. In time, they might forgive him for dying. But it’s none of Daud’s concern now.

“The dust has only just. Begun. To fall.” Billie’s voice brings him back, like waves sweeping out to sea. “Crop circles in the carpets. Sinking. Feeling.”

Her low, breathy voice brings another smile to his lips. She always used to sing little songs under her breath, occasionally drumming her hands to the beat she heard in her head. Daud would creep up on her to listen, because he knew she wouldn’t do it if someone was watching. She was self-conscious about it. He was never about to put into words that her small, husky voice wasn’t the reason her singing was so beautiful to him. It was her simple joy, the small moments where she allowed herself to have fun. He loved it.

“...close your eyes, the sun is going down…”

High, thin, almost mockingly sweet. That voice isn’t Billie’s.

Daud pulls his hand back and tries to sit up, wincing. His back still hurts like a bitch. Weren’t they supposed to be beyond pain, wherever they are? Maybe Daud’s not entirely dead yet. Maybe there’s still some connection to his body, his tired, broken heart still pumping aimlessly as Lizzy tries to keep him breathing, salvage his burnt flesh. But Daud has left his body behind, and he’s in no hurry to go back. Lizzy will give up. The last strings connecting him to his mortal shell will be severed. And Daud will be free at last.

They’re on a ship. Below deck, crammed with luggage and various cargo. Daud wonders if this boat is a ghost too, sunk out in the ocean and now Billie’s taken command of its memory, sailing it through the Void. Windows down, door shut. He can’t see what’s outside. But maybe that’s the point.

“You’ll be alright, no one can hurt you now…”

“Spin me round. Again. And rub my eyes this can’t. Be happening.”

Who else is singing? Daud tries again to push himself up. Whoever it is isn’t singing with Billie. Or rather, Billie’s not singing with her. 

“Come morning light...” the mysterious singer twings. “You and I’ll be safe...and...sound...”

Billie sits hunched over at the waist, her right arm pressed into her stomach. Undignified, improper posture for an Empress. Behind her, a squarely-built man with a mane of black hair paints, wearing a long grey coat similar to Billie’s. His voice is low, nearly bellowing, and his accent thick with the manners of Tyvia.

“If you’re good if you’re bad, or somewhere in between,” he sings as he mixes colors on his palette. “No matter what you’ve done, no matter if you’re clean.”

So Anton Sokolov was dead after all. Figures. Daud hadn’t exactly held out hope for him-and truthfully, he hadn’t cared too much. He never particularly liked Sokolov. And he had other things to concern himself with than worrying about the old bat.

“Try to keep in the dark, you can’t hide from your past, so much wisdom to impart.”

Billie nods along with her own tempo, her eyes closed. “When busy streets. Amass with people would stop to hold. Their heads. Heavy.”

A burst of melodic notes, plucked strings and wooden echoes. Leaning out and looking around Billie, Daud finally spots her. Perched on a cargo crate, strumming a guitar. Two long red braids at both sides of her head.

“Don’t you dare look out your window darling everything’s on fire…” the girl sings. “The war outside our door keeps raging on…”

She looks familiar. Daud can’t place her.

Of course, not everyone agreed on what happened after your spirit was lost to the Void. Some older cultures liked to preach this idea, and many found comfort in believing there was an afterlife. Paradise.

“Oily marks appear on walls. Where pleasure moments hung. Before.”

Daud never put much stock in it. He learned very early in life that if something seemed too good to be true, it most definitely was.

But here he is now. On a boat, with Billie. Is this her paradise? All he wanted was to be with her, so his own paradise was easy to attain. He was more than content riding along with hers.

“Short tempers around, and sometimes far worse, fingers for a crown, or coin from a purse,” Sokolov bellows.

Of course, what was up with her chosen company? It’s not like Daud can complain-she’s taken him along, after all, and that’s all he can ask of her. But he was under the impression that Billie preferred to avoid Sokolov, and it was no secret that he loathed nobility. Daud wouldn’t have expected them to willingly spend their afterlives on a boat together. 

And...where is his mother? If this was some form of afterlife, shouldn’t his mother be here? Unless she wasn’t dead yet. But Daud had always figured...she would have heard when he became Royal Protector, wouldn’t she? It’s not as if his name was common. And she would have known where to go to find him then. Why hadn’t she? The only explanation that Daud had come up with was that she had already passed away when Billie had become Empress, when their names were plastered over every newspaper from Karnaca to Wei-Ghon. 

But why isn’t she here now? Daud has so many things he needs to tell her. Billie’s here. He wants to introduce them, show Billie off. He’s always known they’d love each other. Where is she?  

And who’s the girl in the corner? He knows everyone Billie’s ever talked to, and he doesn’t forget a face.

“Hold...on...to...this...lullaby....”

Well, he remembers her face. Vaguely. But when he tries to remember where he’s seen it, he comes up lacking.

“...even when the music’s gone…” The girl strums a chord. “...gone…”

He turns to ask Billie, but the words catch in his throat and she presses one long, brown finger to his lips. Concern, he can read in her eyes. Stay quiet.

“The takeover. The sweeping insensitivity of this.” She still sings softly under her breath. “Still-life.”

She looks over her shoulder, her eyes wide with worry and her plump lips pressed together. 

Daud reaches up and digs his hand into her hair. As curly as ever. The palace maids had bemoaned her unruly hair, were stumped as to how one person could have so much of it. He curls his fingers and marvels at the thickness. Thomas used to think she looked like a mermaid like this, with her hair grown out and spilling down her back. Empresses were virtually never allowed to wear their hair loose. Seeing her like this was a treat.

“Hide and seek.” Billie’s hand slides into his free one, but her eyes don’t meet his. She checks behind her once, twice, looking around as if something will emerge from the shadows. “Trains and sewing machines.”

He wants to ask her what she’s looking for. Why she looks so nervous. She shouldn’t be, not here. No more pain. No more fear.

“Blood and tears.” Her voice goes up and cracks, so harshly on the last two words that Daud barely understands them. Then she’s nearly inaudible. “They were here first.”

Sokolov continues on with his painting and singing, as if unaffected by whatever has Billie on edge. “Boots on the ground, guards and their hounds, they prey on the weak, the ill and the meek.”

What...is he painting? Daud tilts his head. The girl’s pitched singing breaks his concentration, as if he can’t look and listen at the same time. 

“Just close your eyes…” She plays another chord, and lets the guitar go silent as she sings. “You’ll be alright…”

She picks up the tempo again, guitar notes bouncing across the cabin. 

“Come morning light...you and I’ll be safe...and...sound…”

The girl continues to hum along, the lyrics fading off.

Billie breaks in, louder. “Hmm, that you only meant well? Well of course you did. Hmm, that it’s all for the best? Of course it is.”

Daud reaches up to touch her, but she turns away. Sokolov continues to paint in the background, unaware.

“If you’re good if you’re bad, or somewhere in between, no matter what you’ve done, no matter if you’re clean.”

The eye pierces him. A startling, impossible light blue, seemingly glowing from within. The face is obscured by bandages, wrapped like an old Pandyssian mummy. All but those lips, plump and red as blood. And that one eye. 

It stares him down.

“Try to keep in the dark, you can’t hide from your past,” Sokolov continues in his Tyvian drawl. “So much wisdom to impart.”

He makes another stroke. “It’s the beating of the heart.”

“Hmm, that it’s just what we need. And you decided this?”

He decided what?

“Hmm, what did you say?”

The girl in the corner strums faster. Billie still doesn’t look at him, staring off in the girl’s direction without really looking at her.

“Billie?”

Billie only shakes her head, her eyes wide and far away. “Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth. Mid-sweet talk; newspaper word cut-outs.”

“Burning buildings, a life saved,” Sokolov timbers on. “Other hardships that are braved.”

The girl with the guitar picks up again. “Don’t you fret my dear…”

He tries to raise his hands to her face, but she seems so, so far away. Her name sticks on his tongue. The apologies. 

“Speak no feeling no. I don’t believe you.” Billie shakes her head. “You don’t care a bit. You don’t care a bit.”

“Words from an Empress now passed,” Sokolov sings. “How long must the burden last?”

“It’ll all be over soon…”

The guitar gets faster, somehow. Daud doesn’t know what to focus on. The music. The painting. Or Billie’s face.

She twists around in her seat, as if going to speak to Sokolov, but she just continues to sing that last little refrain of her song in a soft voice. Over and over and over. You don’t care a bit. He doesn’t care a bit.

“I’ll be waiting here…” The girl sings, loud and drawn-out. “For you.”

The swaying and creaking of the ship, it’s too...perfect. Uniform. Predictable. It’s not right, somehow. It sets every nerve of his on edge. It’s wrong. This is all wrong.

Billie doesn’t move. All Daud can see is the left side of her profile, her lips moving in time.

“For you…”

He’s still holding her left hand, but her right is still tucked into her midsection. Daud reaches up, goes to take her other hand in his, get her attention.

Only he doesn’t find it. All his fingers find is the soft flesh of her belly, and he moves his hand on instinct. To grip her elbow. To find the rest of her.

His hands closes around a stump.

Billie’s arm ends right below her elbow joint, empty space where her forearm and hand  _ should  _ be. Daud blinks at it, his fingers running along the broken edges as if trying to make sense of it. 

She isn’t right. She isn’t  _ whole. _

The guitar strums again. “Run, run, run away…”

Billie finally, finally turns her head. Stares at him impassively. As if daring him to say something.

Her right eye is  _ gone. _

There’s a black hole where warm brown should be, gaping at him. Her cheekbone fractured and uneven. Her flesh stretched over as if trying to smooth it down, to make it better, to trim the edges around that empty, empty hole.

Daud reaches for her face, but his movement is slowed. He hadn’t noticed that the ship has sprung a leak, the cabin filling with water, but now everything is filtered through the dark blue of the sea. Light plays at weird angles. Daud only has eyes for her.

Billie’s hair floats up in a cloud, stretched out and dancing. Daud can see the bubbles that leak from his own lips, but hers are still. Bloodless. Unbreathing.

Daud’s hands close around her face, willing his touch to breathe life back into her. For her lips to move again, for that one eye to do something other than staring, staring, staring. The blue eye of the painting meshes with hers, flipped and reflected, brought together in the most impossible and wrong way. 

And then Billie...falls apart.

It’s all red and purple, bits of her flaking off like burnt paper and dissolving into the ether, because even this is unnatural. Billie stares and she comes apart at the seams, her very existence pulled apart. Billie stares and falls apart and Daud is left trying to catch bits on the water, keep her together, put her back together, but the glowing, dying embers slip right through his fingers and she’s lost forever.

 

* * *

 

Blood in his mouth. Deep, thudding notes reverbing in his skull.  _ Pain. _

He’s on fire again. He has to fight the water, bat away the flames, the waves wash him away and it’s taking him away and he reaches out with no clear intent in mind just that it’s red and there’s fire and he has to fight-

There’s a choking sound.

His hands around her throat. Daud is in bed. He can breathe. There’s no water. And the only red is of Rose’s hair, spilling down her cheeks.

Rose, who blinks at him with his hands wrapped around her neck, his thumb pressing against her Adam’s apple.

“Daud,” she says, and he can feel her words reverb through his fingertips. “Could you not crush my larynx, please?”

Shaking, Daud releases her. She looks rather calm, considering Daud just nearly choked her to death, but she does take a step back.

“What…” He wets his mouth, trying to make the questions come in an orderly fashion.

“You’re in Trimble’s clinic,” Rose supplies. “You were burnt pretty badly.”

So he’s still alive. How that fall didn’t kill him, Daud will never know.

Something cool at his lips. Rose slips her hand behind his neck and helps him to drink. It’s humiliating, but he can’t help but feel grateful. The water softens his tongue, though it’s still heavy in his mouth.

“What day is it?” he manages to get out. Rose sets the jug down somewhere out of his narrow view, smoothing her apron.

“Thirteenth, Month of Ice,” she states matter-of-factually. “It’s, um, nearly six in the evening now, sir.”

Just one day, then. Barely been out a day. 

Rose turns her head towards the door, but then returns her gaze to Daud. “Lizzy brought you in late last night,” she explains. “Said you were caught in some explosion? She didn’t really explain-she just kept yelling at us to fix you.”

“Where’s Lizzy now?” he slurs. “Is she okay?”

Rose stands up a little straighter. “She’s in the other room-she and Thomas made me promise to wake them as soon as you woke up. It was the only way they would leave and get some sleep.” She shifts on her heels. “I should go let them know you’re awake…”

“No, wait.” His hand doesn’t make it to hers, but she stops anyway. “Let them sleep a bit longer. Just...I need a moment.”

She smiles. “They’ll be furious with me.”

“Let me take the fall for it.” Fuck, he already did that yesterday.

Rose complies though, sitting neatly in a chair near the head of his bed. “I’m not sure where Trimble is, but he’ll come check on you soon. Up your drugs, if you’re in pain.”

“I’m not,” he shakes his head, but the motion sends stars across his vision. Daud squeezes his eyes shut and breathes. “Sorry,” he says. “For almost killing you there.”

“I’m getting used to that. You were having a fit,” she motions. “In your sleep. I was worried you’d reopen your wounds.”

“My wounds,” he repeats. “How badly am I fucked up?”

He  _ can  _ move, which is a good sign. But doing so takes quite a bit of energy and hurts like a bitch to boot. Pain from where, he can’t tell. Everywhere.

“Uh, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Rose says, then slaps her hand over her mouth to cover her giggle. “No, it looks pretty bad. I thought it did, at least, but after you survived the first few hours, Trimble said you’d be fine.”

Dangerous words for a nurse. Tempting fate.

“But I’m no doctor,” she continues. “I just handed shit to him, moved things when he told me to. You were burnt pretty badly across your back. You’re lying on, like, a bunch of agave sap right now.”

That must have been expensive. Agave plants grew in Serkonos. Though Trimble probably already had it on hand, if he was able to treat Daud with it.

Why was he lying on his back?

“You had some cuts and stuff too, big ones on your leg and your forehead, no, don’t  _ touch  _ it. You lost a lot of blood. We had to get you some fresh stuff. And Lizzy said you almost drowned, so you nearly died in about three different ways.”

“You gave me blood?” Daud says, the words feeling odd on his tongue.

_ “I  _ didn’t, personally, but yeah.”

He’s heard about blood transfusions. The technology had been available to him before, him and Thomas and Billie, but Daud’s always been grateful none of them had ever needed one. It was rather dangerous. He knew philosophers were still figuring out what made some people’s blood incompatible with others, but there was still some guesswork involved.

“You have blood just...lying around?”

“We did, but not the kind, you know, that you needed.” Rose fidgets. “Your type is weird apparently? We all let Trimble test ours-” She wags her finger, wrapped in a white bandage. “-but nearly everyone was incompatible. Even Thomas didn’t have the same blood type as you.”

“That’s because Thomas isn’t...” Daud groans. “Who ended up giving me blood?”

“My brother.”

“What?”

“Reed did.” She shrugs, staring off at the wall. “He was literally the only person here who matched. Couldn’t tell you why. I don’t understand that biology stuff.”

“That.” He blinks. “You have different blood types? You’re his sister.”

“Half-sister,” she corrects. “I mean, not that it matters to us, but we do have different fathers.”  

Right. Of course they do. Rose didn’t know who hers was, and Reed is fucking brown. Not as dark as Billie, but certainly too dark to be completely the same race as whatever his siblings are, who could both guide whaling ships if you shined a light on them.

Daud would have to thank him, when he could sit up properly. They owed a lot to that kid.

“Were you singing just now?”

Rose blinks. “Uh...what?”

“When I was asleep. Were you singing?” If it was just her, he could explain it away. Just a fever dream. Someone his mind cobbled together to make sense of the surroundings he was coming back into.

But Rose just continues to stare blankly. “No? I wouldn’t want to disturb you. I was just reading.”

There’s a knock on the doorway, and Rose automatically jumps to her feet. Daud shifts his eyes over-and fuck, even that hurts-to see Trimble standing there.

“Knock-knock,” he says redundantly, stepping into the room. “Well, good to see you awake, Daud. We thought you might be leaving us for a while there.”

“Thought I might be too,” Daud says, and he’d attempt a smile if it didn’t hurt so much.

Trimble stands over his bed, pinches his fingers to Daud’s wrist and purses his lips in concentration. Rose waits behind him, her fingers digging into the edges of her apron. Finally, Trimble releases his wrist.

“Heart rate’s good. On the fast side, but that appears to be normal for you,” he says. “What’s his temperature?”

Rose flushes. “I haven’t taken it yet…”

“Why in the Void not? Do it now!”

Daud frowns as Trimble moves away, opening a notebook on a nearby table and scribbling something in it. Daud looks at the thermometer Rose procures with disdain. “Why does she need to take my temperature?”

“It doesn’t matter. I told her to.”

_ “I’m  _ wondering.”

“Ah. Well, injuries can contribute to fever,” Trimble says as he writes. “And a particularly high one can indicate infection, which you’re at risk for.”

Daud’s not too worried about infection. The Mark probably protects against that too.

The Mark. He raises his left hand, eyes darting to it. His fingers are pink and raw, but his palm and the back of his hand are wrapped. White, sterile gauze. Not the dark fabric he usually ties around his hand. 

Fuck. Did Thomas see?

“Daud, I need you to open your mouth.” Rose stares him down impassively. She inserts the thermometer under his tongue.

“Did I ever tell you I once bit one of these in half?” he says, but it comes out half-intelligible due to the aforementioned thermometer in his mouth.

Rose still laughs, though. “Didn’t taste very good, I imagine.”

He doesn’t remember the mercury tasting like anything, but then, his mother had made him spit it out immediately. He had gotten cuts on his tongue from the broken glass. Wasn’t a fun experience.

Rose takes the thermometer out and surveys it with a frown. “Thirty-five-point-four. He’s still running cold.”

“Normal,” Trimble responds.

That seemed too cold to be normal, but Daud can’t fucking remember what is normal. At Dunwall Tower, there were doctors to handle this sort of thing. If Billie or Thomas were sick, and Billie rarely was, he pretty much just let the doctors do their job and helped with giving them medicine or whatever. Before that, he didn’t own a fucking thermometer. He judged their temperature by the old forehead touch trick. He knew what was too hot for them. 

“How are you feeling, Daud?” Trimble is lurking over him again, staring down in false concern. “Any pain?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Trimble chuckles. “Good point. I’ll give you another shot of morphine.” He snaps his fingers. “You, girl. Go up to my lab and prepare another dose for Mr. Daud.”

“Yes, sir.” 

Daud frowns as he watches her scamper away, her temperament melted away like spring snow. He thought they were past this. That she wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

“Now, I think it’s time we have a chat.” Trimble closes the door, speaking to the floor. “Just doctor to patient. No bars.”

“Aren’t you a nurse?” Daud asks, almost drunkenly. Trimble purses his lips. Well, he probably shouldn’t have said that. Daud doesn’t actually know what the difference is, but he remembers Trimble being called a nurse.

“Well, considering I’m the only person here who attended the Academy for medicine, I’m the closest we have. And that,” he says, taking Rose’s seat, staring into Daud’s eyes. “Gives me the knowledge to say, with certainty, that you are very lucky to be alive, Daud.”

“Hmm.”

Trimble just continues to stare. “You have second and third-degree burns covering most of your back. You’d be in worse shape if your coat wasn’t fireproofed. They’re thermal burns, mostly, so you’ll likely keep most of your skin.”

None of that meant anything to Daud.

“Add to that two deep lacerations, significant blood loss,” Trimble continues to ramble. “Multiple spinal fractures, inhaling copious amounts of seawater, likely a concussion, Daud-” Trimble stares him down. “The fact that you’re conscious right now, a day later, is nothing short of a miracle.”

Daud stares back. “I’m a fast healer.”

“Indeed, you are.” Trimble nods. “One could even say  _ super _ naturally so.”

Daud keeps his face neutral, betraying nothing.

Trimble continues the staring contest. Neither move for a long minute. Finally, Daud breaks the silence.

“That was a shitty pun.”

Which makes Trimble laugh, but not in the way that he actually found it funny. “That’s fair,” he says, getting to his feet.

Daud tries to crane his neck to follow Trimble across the room, but it hurts too much. His head drops back to the pillow. “Does Thomas know?”

“Of all things, that’s your concern?” Trimble walks back into frame, holding a different, smaller notebook. “No. No one saw but myself and Miss Elizabeth, though she didn’t react to it.”

“She already knew.”

Should he be telling Trimble this? He knows he can’t trust the man, but keeping too much information from someone could be just as dangerous as giving it to them. Starve a man and he’ll go searching for a meal, and all that.

Trimble nods to himself, paging through his little notebook. “I wondered about that. You two are awfully...close.”

“Is she not allowed to have friends or something?”

“I just find it a... _ peculiar _ choice.” Trimble shrugs. “I realize that she’s close in age to the late Empress, but they’re quite different in terms of appearance and anatomy-”

“I’m not fucking Lizzy, and if you insinuate that again I will stab you through the eye socket with your own damn scalpel.”

“Forgive me.” He smiles in that predatory way. 

Daud’s lip curls in disgust. “I can’t speak for you, but I don’t stick my dick in people young enough to be my kids. And if that’s what you think about in your spare time, you need to reevaluate your life choices.”

“I understand, Daud.” Trimble raises his hand to dismiss him. “But back to what I was saying, I figured you had reasons for concealing your...abilities from your allies.”

He did. The biggest one being that he didn’t trust them.

“So I took the liberty of covering the Mark before allowing in visitors.” Trimble flicks his hand. “And you don’t have to worry about me keeping the secret. I’ll keep this under wraps.” He chuckles. “Literally.”

Well, that was a nice gesture, but Daud didn’t believe him. Doctor-patient confidentiality was fucking fake, especially when you were playing with power. Trimble would sell-out in a heartbeat if it benefitted him. 

Trimble continues to talk, still paging through his notebook. “I do wish you had told me, however. There should be no barriers between you and your physician.”

“I didn’t fucking know you until two weeks ago.”

“That’s very true, I suppose.” Trimble says. “Still, your unique physiology means I have to make some changes to your treatment, and I’m still working out some of the kinks.” He flexes his long, spidery fingers. “Pain management, for example-you burn through opiates almost as fast as I can get them into you. You likely have an increased tolerance as well-I’ll be able to test this, now that you’re awake, and we’ll find a balance that works for your body.”

“Great,” Daud says. “But just to warn you, if you ever breathe a word of this to Thomas, I will end you so quickly you won’t even see it coming. Is that clear?”

“Oh. Crystal.” Then Trimble smiles, showing off all his teeth.

Rose bursts back in, holding a syringe. “Sixty milligrams, just as you asked.”

“Ah, good.” Trimble waves her over as he picks up his pen. “Administer it as I showed you. Get his pulse first.”

Rose gently pushes on his chin, trying to get to his neck. Daud grits his teeth and forces himself not to swat her away. Someone holding a sharp object to his neck aside, he’s always hated needles. Would rather be  _ shot  _ than get an injection at times. Thomas used to dislike them as well, but Daud thinks it was just a copy-cat phase, acting nervous because Daud clearly didn’t like getting them. Billie never cared.

He practically jumps as Trimble snaps his fingers. “Are you daft? You, girl, I said get his pulse first!”

Rose’s fingers fly to Daud’s wrist, but he’s quick to push them away, glaring daggers at Trimble. “She has a name.”

Trimble rolls his eyes. “She’s also not following direction.”

“Daud.” Rose’s alert, blue eyes meet his. “It’s not worth it.”

Yes, it fucking was. Daud was the first to admit he wasn’t good with names, but he always  _ tried.  _ He learned the names of the servants at Dunwall Tower, asked if he couldn’t remember. He always made Billie and Thomas address their staff by name. Tried to instill upon them that their subjects were people, that they needed to respect them as such to be respected back. And it made a difference in how Billie had treated her staff, and how she ruled. Daud had literally overheard arguments between maids over who got to attend to the Empress that day. Not because she was low-maintenance or anything, but because there was some decency to her interactions. Some kindness.

“Her name is Rose,” Daud says slowly. “If you can’t respect her enough to call her by name, then you have no business giving her orders.”

Rose presses her lips together in a tight half-smile. “That’s...actually not my name.”

“Yes, yes, Rosalind, whatever.” Trimble waves his hand. “Just take his pulse so I can be done with you.”

Daud wants to respond, but Rose only pinches his wrist and rattles off some numbers that have no meaning to Daud. Then she injects him. The morphine spreads through Daud’s veins, uncomfortably cool. Rose stands up and wipes her hands on her apron.

“I should go wake Lord Thomas now…”

Trimble doesn’t look up from his writing. “Yes, you’re excused. Be gone, girl.”

Rose turns tail and practically runs out the door.

Trimble crosses the room to check Daud’s pulse himself, finger on his wrist and his eye on the clock. Daud swallows before he can speak.

“Am I your lab rat, Trimble?”

“You will have to be. Unless you don’t plan to ever require medical attention from me again.”

Daud would rather die than let Trimble treat him again.

“No one plans to get put in the hospital.”

“True, true.” He laughs.

Daud continues to stare him down. “I’m not here for your curiosity, Trimble.”

“Oh, I understand that. But  _ you  _ have to understand,” Trimble says, flicking his eyes up to meet Daud’s. “That you’re quite interesting for someone like myself.”

“Interesting,” Daud repeats flatly.

Trimble nods. “Surviving multiple injuries that no mortal man has any business living through, insomnia and anger management issues stemming from post-traumatic stress disorder, arcane abilities, Daud-” Trimble grins in a way that shows off his long canines without the smile reaching his eyes. “You’re a hot mess. And I find it  _ fascinating.” _

Daud can’t think of any way to respond to that. He ends up not having to when the door slams open a second later.

“Daud!” 

A blur of blue and blonde comes rushing at him, and Daud barely has time to smile before Thomas practically jumps on top of him and throws his arms around his shoulders.

“Aiiii...”

Thomas is squeezing all the wrong muscles, torcing his fractured spine. Daud can’t make words come out of his mouth while the fireworks go off in his head.

“For fuck’s sake, Tommy, let the man breathe.”

Thomas is pulled back, his cheeks red and his hair sticking up in every direction. He just woke up. But he’s smiling so hard his face might break.

Lizzy has Thomas by the back of his shirt, giving him a good shake before releasing her hold on him. Then her eyes slide over to Daud and she smiles. “Hey, fucker. Nice to see you back in the land of the living.”

“Suppose I have you to thank for drop-kicking me back here.” He holds his hand up, lets Lizzy grab onto it. She squeezes, briefly, then drops it.

She’s not in the best shape either. Bandages line her forehead, her chin, all down her bare arms. He can see tinged, pink skin peaking out in places. Her eyes have dark circles under them and part of her remaining patch of hair has been shaved away, but fuck, she looks better than he probably does now.

“I’ll leave you all to your reunion,” Trimble says as he packs up his notes. “Send Miss Elizabeth to me if you need anything, Daud. I’ll just be in my office.”

Thomas drops down on Daud’s bed, and Daud tries to stifle his moan when the bed dips down and aggravates his skin. Even his legs are burnt, apparently.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, biting his lip. “You look, like, way better than you did last night.”

_ “Loads  _ better.” Lizzy drops into Rose’s vacated chair, wincing as her butt meets the seat. “Thought you were dead when I fished you out of the water. Had to keep checking to make sure I wasn’t bringing home a corpse.”

“Thanks, Lizzy. Your concern warms my heart,” Daud groans. “I feel about as good as you’d expect right now.”

They both have bandages wrapped around their fingers, the pointer on their right hand. Trimble doesn’t have one, but then, Trimble probably already knew his blood type.

“What happened, Lizzy?” Daud turns his head.

She plumps her lips and stares at him. “You got blown up, and fell like a hundred feet. And cracked your head on the rocks. Then you almost drowned.”

“I got that part.” Daud rolls his eyes. “I mean, what happened from there?”

“I saw you.” Lizzy tucks one leg under her butt. “Saw you take flight like a fucking phoenix on crack. Kind of flipped out-jumped in the water and fucking swam to you.” She snorts. “Forgot I had the boat.”

“Granny was in the boat,” Daud says, but then he closes his mouth. He can’t remember what else he was going to say about that.

“Yeah. Lucky thing, too. She steered the boat to us, so I didn’t have to haul you all the way back.” Lizzy shrugs. “You were dead weight in the water-was a bitch to keep your head above the surface. I mean, I can swim the distance,” Lizzy smacks her chest, then winces. “But this was, like, swimming on hard mode. Tons of wreckage from the slaughterhouse and-” She makes a motion like rolling her hand on the water. “-there was fucking oil in the water, and you know what happens with oil?”

“It floats to the top when mixed with water,” Thomas states.

Lizzy just looks at him. “Well, that too. But that’s not what I meant.” She stretches and retracts her fingers, flashing her hands at them. “It fucking burns. So the water is on fire. Let me stress that, the water is fucking on fire, it’s practically boiling underneath and I’m swimming through this goddamn river of flames trying to get to your fucking dad, who I’m not even sure is alive anymore. All the while the goddamn factory keeps exploding and making it rain flaming masonry. It was a bitch, is what I’m getting at.”

If anyone could have done it, it would have been Lizzy. Daud’s seen her swim-she’s like a mermaid, if mermaids were also known to carry knives and stab people. Cutting through the water like she does a Watch asshole’s chest, more graceful than she moves on land.

Daud’s bigger than Lizzy, and certainly has more muscle on him, but he knows she’s stronger than she looks. And the Bond gave her strength as well-did that even work, when he was knocked out like that? 

In any case, it’s good she was with him. Daud can’t imagine Galia being able to keep his head above water and dog-paddle them both to safety. 

“Granny was actually kind of helpful, surprisingly,” Lizzy continues. “Not with, like, getting you into the boat.  _ That  _ was a cunt and a half. But I had no fucking clue what to do with you from there, so I steered the boat and she applied pressure to your bleeding bits until we got back. Got your coat off too. Probably saved most of the skin on your back.”

“I liked Granny.” Thomas pulls his feet up onto the bed, crossing them. “Everybody else said she was weird and a witch, but she seems nice.”

They have no idea how accurate that statement is.

Lizzy shakes her head. “She’s crazy, Thomas.”

“She’s old. Jerome thinks she’s senile, so it’s not like it’s her fault.”

“In any case,” Daud leans back and winces as his shoulder rubs against his pillow wrong. “Thanks for saving my ass, Liz.”

Lizzy smiles, showing off her dazzling, rotting smile. “Hey, you saved my ass. Life for a life, and all that fuckery.”

Thomas turns to her. “What did he have to save you from? You didn’t tell us how the mission went at all.”

“Daud was more important.” Lizzy waves her hand. “Aw, Overseer fucks. Had me cornered for a hot minute, but Daud stormed in and rescued me, like some cheesy opera. Pretty sure his shirt was blowing open in the wind.”

“It was way too cold for that,” Daud mutters. Details about the previous day are coming back to him in waves. The Overseers, Rinaldo. The  _ Cardinals. _

Thomas looks over to him with concern in his eyes. “Did you kill them, Daud?” he asks bluntly.

Daud attempts to push himself up, for this, but he doesn’t get too far. “Thomas,” he warns. “I do what has to be done. I don’t think it does you any good to hear about it, so I’d suggest you don’t ask me.”

Thomas presses his lips together, staring out the window past Lizzy’s head.

Daud frowns, and tries again. “So it turns out Rinaldo was our mole.”

“Escobar?” Thomas’s concern drops off his face. Daud nods.

“He was employed under a fake name. He’s gone now, went back to wherever he’s been staying and lying low for a bit.”

“That’s awesome.” Thomas smiles. “And his brother? Did he mention?”

“Rulfio is fine. He’s living with Misha, Fisher, for a while.” The names take a minute to percolate his mind. He’s finding it difficult not to remember things, but simply keep them straight. Daud hopes this is temporary.

“I take it you know who those people are?” Lizzy raises an eyebrow.

Thomas nods. “Yeah. Yeah, friends of ours. Employees, technically.” His eyes are far away. “Rinaldo and my sister were very close.”

“I kind of gathered that. He was a cool dude.”

That reminds Daud that Thomas still hadn’t been told the entirety of what happened after Delilah took over the Tower. He hasn’t seen Galia’s list of casualties. Some of his friends are on that list. He’s probably still looking forward to reuniting with them. Daud would break it to him. But not now.

“So, can I ask? Before the others come up for the official story?” Thomas taps his fingers along the sheets, his eyes trained on a corner on the far side of the room. “How did you get hurt, exactly?”

“We had to blow up the slaughterhouse, Thomas,” Lizzy says. “I told you that.”

“I know, but  _ you  _ had plenty of time to evacuate.” Thomas bites his lip. “What was Daud still doing there?”

“I was leaving, Thomas.” Daud winces as he shifts his position. “Was sitting on a walkway, looking for Lizzy. Stupid of me to not get clear of the place first.”

“He had to double back because Rinaldo was being a fucking idiot,” Lizzy adds.

Thomas’s eyes bore into him, sad and accusing all in the same manner. “That’s really what happened?”

“Thomas, you know I’ve never lied to you.”

It’s not about lying, he knows. He can read the implications between Thomas’s words. Why he doubts Daud.

Thomas thinks Daud did this on purpose.

“Hey.” Daud tries to extend his arm, take Thomas’s hand, but another burst of pain flares through his shoulder and he has to drop it. “I’m sorry.”

Thomas blinks. “For what?”

“For breaking my promise.” Daud looks off to the side. “I said I’d be careful. And I wasn’t careful enough.”

“Daud, it’s fine.” He leans forward to grab Daud’s hand, squeezes it and smiles. ”I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Daud even manages a small smile back.

Lizzy coughs. “Well, as heart-warming this is, I gotta break it up.” She jabs her thumb towards the door. “We do kind of have to tell the others that Daud is awake and whatnot.”

“Already?” Thomas pouts. “Daud  _ just  _ woke up. Maybe we can hold off until morning.”

Daud’s in no hurry to see the rest of the fucks he works with, but he knows if he puts the briefing off it’ll just hang over his head. “No, let’s just...get this over with…”

He wheezes as he tries to sit up, a burning pain in his lung preventing him from taking a full breath. Thomas jumps up and hovers over him.

“Are you in pain?” he asks, and Daud would respond sarcastically if he could get the air to talk. “Nurse Trimble said he’d take care of you.”

Lizzy snorts. “And you believed him?” She stands up, shooing Thomas away from Daud. “Go. Tell Trimblefuck Daud needs more drugs.”

Daud just got drugs; he can still feel them under his skin. It’s an odd feeling. He’s been on morphine before, and he’s never been so acutely aware of its presence in his veins. It is working-it’s just not  _ enough  _ to even touch Daud’s pain.

“I can do that!” Thomas says brightly, then scampers away. Daud suppresses a smile, the irony of Lizzy practically ordering the Emperor of the Isles around not lost on him. But Thomas likes being helpful. Always has.

Lizzy plops back down in her chair and tilts her head back. Daud watches her, notes the purple under her eyes and the piece of gauze she has shoved into her ear canal, spotty with blood.

“You know, Daud, Lizzy Stride does not get scared,” she says, holding up a finger. After a moment, she points it at him. “But you, yesterday? You fucking  _ freaked  _ me out, old man.”

“Didn’t realize you cared,” Daud tries to tease, but he quickly turns somber. “Couldn’t you feel me through the Bond?”

Lizzy shifts, an uncomfortable expression crossing her face. “I could. Like, it was still there, and I could feel  _ you-”  _ She motions between them. “But you were dead weight. Like your grip on it had gone totally slack. I kept pulling and got nothing.”

“About that,” Daud says. “What the hell was that, when you were with those Overseers?”

“What was what?” Lizzy blinks.

“You...I don’t know,  _ called  _ to me. Told me you needed help.”

Lizzy looks confused, but she just shakes her head. “I didn’t yell for you or anything, so fuck if I know. Cool feature, though.”

Right. Lizzy would never have willingly called for help. It was unintentional. Fine, but he hopes she doesn’t try to suppress it in the future out of pride. He doesn’t give a shit if she’s embarrassed-this was literally his job. Billie was one of the strongest people he’d ever met and even she needed protecting sometimes.

He wasn’t strong enough to do that either.

“But back to you.” Lizzy waves her hand. “If you ever fucking die on me, for real, I hope you know that I’m just going to storm into the Void and drag your ass back. Don’t think you’re getting out of this that easily.”

“Lizzy, I wasn’t trying to fucking kill myself.” Daud rubs at his eyes. “You know I was going back for Rinaldo. I didn’t  _ intend  _ to get caught up in that.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Lizzy kicks at the floor, brushing the underside of her foot over the planks. She doesn’t believe him.

“We’re seeing this bullshit through, Stride.” He reaches out and grabs her wrists, making her look him in the eye. Brown, a hint of hazel. Not quite as dark as Billie’s. 

He and Lizzy communicate much in the same way he and Billie did. There was an understanding between them that went deeper than words. Some things didn’t need to be said.

So Lizzy knows what Daud is really telling her. Asking her to see it through for him, if he can’t himself. Put Thomas on the throne. He already figured Lizzy would pick up the torch, if something happened to him, but he needs to know for sure now. He needs her promise.

Lizzy stares at him for a long moment, then she rolls her eyes. “Fine, but you made Thomas a promise. You gotta make one to me too.”

“What?”

“Don’t,” she jabs her finger at his chest. “Fucking get yourself killed, you dumbass.”

Daud manages a laugh. “I’ll do my best.”

“I mean it,” she huffs, folding her arms. “You die, there goes my magic powers. I don’t want to go back to walking everywhere like some sort of peasant.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. 

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she whispers out of the corner of her mouth, which is about as close to ‘you’re my friend and I like you’ as Lizzy will ever get.

 

* * *

 

Everyone crams into Daud’s little hospital room, staring at him with expectant faces. Daud barely acknowledges all the well-wishing. They could care less about his health, as long as he can still swing a sword.

Thomas is back on his cot, scooted down a bit so he sits at Daud’s feet. Thalia all but kicked Lizzy out of her seat, and is now sitting prim and proper as if she’s already a fucking queen. Lizzy stands by Daud’s head, arms crossed and glaring at anyone who gets too close to him.

Edgar stands behind Thalia, exchanging a few heated hand signals with Lizzy before huffing and looking away. Galia stands next to Thomas, while Zhukov lurks practically in the doorway. Trimble sits at his table, scribbling away and pretending not to exist. Like they could ignore him.

Lydia and Jerome are the only people who seem genuinely happy to see Daud alive. Lydia backed away from his cot after a particularly withering glare from Galia, but Jerome just plopped down on the floor next to his head, chattering away about new ways to fireproof his armor. Daud has no intention of being on fire again any time soon, but he appreciates the thought. 

“While we’re very glad you’re feeling better, Daud,” Thalia says flatly. “I’m afraid we must get down to business. We need to know the details of your mission.”

“Like why you two decided to blow up Rothwild Slaughterhouse,” Galia says, her eyes darting between him and Lizzy, who huffs and rolls her eyes.

“It got the job done, Miss Officer.”

“It also has the Regent royally pissed off. And you, Daud-” She whips her head to him, laying in a hospital bed. “You took out half a city block. What happened to  _ stealth,  _ old man?”

“Same thing that happened to your manners, evidently.”

“This isn’t a joke, Daud,” Edgar says, arms crossed over his chest. “Kaldwin is out for blood. Run another sloppy job like that, you’ll lead her right to our doorstep.”

Daud waves his hand. “What trail did I leave? The factory is  _ gone.  _ If anything, I erased-” He coughs, painfully. “...evidence. For all Delilah knows, the strikers blew the place up.”

Lizzy raises her hand meekly. “Actually, uh, they know it was us.”

Daud eyes her. “How, may I ask?”

“You know that thing you wrote when you killed Timsh, ‘The Crown Killer is Watching’? Yeah, Rin and I painted that on the wall right next to the entrance. Wanted to, you know...leave our calling card.”

Thomas purses his lips, but that’s all the indication he gives that he’s displeased. Daud sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose.

“You could have told me that.”

“Oh, when would I have done that?! When you were on fire? When I was trying to paddle you back to the boat through fucking armageddon-”

“That’s enough.” Trimble doesn’t even pause in his note-taking. “So Lady Kaldwin knows the Crown Killer destroyed the warehouse. There’s nothing we can do about that now, so let Daud explain the rest.”

“Yes, explain.” Thalia turns back to him. “Why is the slaughterhouse a crater now? What could you possibly have gained from that?”

“We struck a deal with the leader of the worker’s union,” Daud says. Lizzy scoffs, but she adds nothing. 

“Ames, right?” Jerome raises a finger. “Papers mentioned it. She’s one of five people unaccounted for after the whole place blew-including Rothwild himself.”

“Rothwild is buried under the rubble,” Lizzy says.

Five people-Abigail would be listed as missing now, as she’s in hiding, but Daud knows she got out. There was Rothwild, and the three butchers he had killed inside the slaughterhouse. Nobody else died in the explosion. The knowledge takes a weight off Daud’s lungs.

“And why did you have to kill him?” Thalia rubs her temples. Lizzy just shrugs.

“He was dead when we got there.”

“Stride-”

“No, I’m being serious.” Lizzy pops her tongue. “We got him in his nice little interrogation chair, then Ames went fucking psycho and stabbed him before we could weasel anything out of him. Then Daud here decided to play peacemaker with Miss Stab-Happy to get her to comply.  _ That’s  _ why he blew the place up.”

“Because she asked you to?” Galia raises an eyebrow at him. “Why would she do that? More importantly, why would you bother appeasing her?”

“Fuck if I know.” Lizzy shrugs. “Daud wouldn’t let me use the chair on her. You can blame him for that.”

Lydia makes a scandalized noise in the back of her throat. “You were going to torture her?” she gasps. “Elizabeth-”

“I will fucking break the fingers of the next person who calls me that.”

“They did that to  _ Daud.”  _ Lydia’s eyes are wide, and her fingers come up to brush against her lips. “Did that not occur to you?”

Daud pulls his hand out of Thomas’s now-iron grasp, careful not to look his way. “For the record, I was never electrocuted,” he says, weakly, but they’re not even paying attention to him.

Edgar flicks his eyes to Lydia in disdain. “Shit’s not always pretty in the underworld, Boyle. Stride knows what she’s doing.”

Lydia just shakes her head. “So what, we’re just torturing people to play them as our puppets now? How is that  _ any  _ different from what Lady Kaldwin was doing?”

“Don’t fucking compare us to Kaldwin,” Lizzy snarls. “Don’t compare it to what they did to Daud. I didn’t make her watch someone she loves die! I didn’t torture her for a murder I committed myself.” She raises a finger. “So if you ever fucking suggest that I am  _ anything  _ like that witch, I swear on the Outsider’s ass, I’ll-”

“Stop.” Thomas says it rather quietly, but it carries the weight of an Emperor’s order. “Just stop. Please. Not now.”

Lizzy puffs up once more, but she blows out a long breath and deflates. Lydia looks to the floor, her cheeks red.

Jerome raises his hand. “Just for the record, Lydia does have a point.” He ducks his head. “I mean, we are supposed to be the good guys here.”

“Good and bad are relative terms, my dear Jerome.”

No one really wants to acknowledge Zhukov, who’s still hanging in the doorway like some cryptid ghost. So he’s at least good for moving the conversation along.

“Anyway.” Galia blinks, taking care not to meet anyone’s eye. “So you destroyed the building for Ames. Did you at least find out the identity of Gardenia?”

“I did.” Daud pushes himself up. “She only knew of the family name, though. And I can’t say I’m familiar with it.”

“Let’s hear it, then.” Thalia straightens up. “Lady Boyle and I will undoubtedly know who they are.”

Of course they would. Daud resists the urge to roll his eyes before opening his mouth. “The name she gave me was ‘Ashworth’.”

There’s a pregnant pause, then the curse comes from an unlikely source.

“Fuck.” Thomas blows the word out of his mouth like air, low and long.

Daud doesn’t reprimand him for the profanity-he cursed so much himself when Thomas was a child that it’s a wonder the kid ever learned any non-swear words. He’s never given much of a shit-Outsider knew Billie cursed enough to put dock workers to shame. He’s pretty certain she came out of the womb dropping f-bombs and knowing multiple curses involving the recipient’s mother. But they all had to learn to censor themselves at Dunwall Tower, and what more, Thomas had never cursed nearly as much as Daud and Billie did. He almost never swore like this.

It’s all the indication Daud needs to know that they were very, very fucked.

“What?” Lizzy stares at him. “I’ve never fucking heard of them, so they can’t be that bad.”

“It’s not-” Thalia shakes her head. “It’s not that they’re a particularly powerful family. It’s just…”

“There’s five Ashworth siblings.” Lydia presses her lips into a thin line. “And if you don’t know which one it is, then our next step will be difficult.”

“Well, let’s try narrowing it down!” Jerome says brightly. “They’ll probably be around the same age as Kaldwin, right?”

“They’re all the same age.” Thalia waves her hand. “Two sets of twins. The original Lady Ashworth had five children in three years.”

“And then she promptly died,” Lydia says, looking sad for a moment. “Lord Ashworth remarried, but their only daughter was stillborn. Quite sad. I believe they still live in the Estate District?”

“The elder Lord and Lady, yes, I believe so.” Thalia straightens out her collar. “I’m unsure about their children.”

“Galia and I can do some digging, find some leads.” Jerome nods his head in Galia’s direction, who doesn’t look too pleased with the concept. “Should we look into all five of them, or can we eliminate some choices?”

Thalia taps her finger against her lip. “Well, Gardenia  _ is  _ a feminine name…”

“They’re flower codenames,” Galia says bluntly. “They all sound feminine. There’s several girly one we’ve found attached to male witches. Fuck, Abele was  _ Daffodil.  _ That’s a stupid way to rule names out.”

“I’m just trying to help.” Thalia turns her nose up.

Jerome doesn’t seem at all phased by their argument, pushing himself into a standing position and playing with his fingers like he does a lot when he’s trying to think. “Alright, well, Kaldwin and Gardenia had a  _ thing  _ going on, so along those lines, wouldn’t it actually be a one of the male Ashworths?”

Lydia hums as she thinks. “It would be much more convenient if it was the other way around. There’s four Ashworth brothers, and only one Ashworth sister we’d be ruling out.”

“Says who?” Lizzy pipes up. “Delilah’s bi as fuck. She had a relationship with the Empress, remember?”

Thalia rolls her eyes. “That’s a peasant’s rumor. Defamation of the Empress, at best.”

It was defamation to say Billie was gay? That was just the truth.

“No it ain’t. Kaldwin romanced the pants off Empress Billie. Like, literally.”

“She appealed to the Empress’s…” Thalia pauses to consider her words.  _ “Unconventional  _ preferences for political gain. I highly doubt they ever consummated the relationship.”

“They did.” Thomas stares at the floor. “I’ve walked in on them.”

Daud’s lip curls in disgust. Next to him, Lizzy makes a dramatic gagging sound. “Well, if it were anyone else, I’d say you were a lucky duck. But with your sister, fuck. Sorry about your eyeballs, kid.”

“When the hell was this?” Daud hisses. He tries not to acknowledge the lump in his stomach, but he still thinks on it anyway. Should he have noticed? He didn’t pay much attention to her romantic life, mostly because he didn’t  _ want  _ to know, but he usually at least knew who was visiting her at night. He had never seen Delilah slinking into her chambers. And if he believed her, Delilah and Billie had been involved for a while.

Billie was sixteen when she appointed Delilah her Spymaster. At that age, puberty had hit Billie like a railcar-she went to bed one night with her short, vaguely-boyish figure and awoke the next morning with full hips and thighs and muscle definition he’d rarely seen on women. She was suddenly taller than him, a fact she never let him live down. And she was stuck in a constant state of completely pissed off. For about three years, Billie was a tightly-wound ball of anger and hormones, ready to rip Daud’s face off for looking at her wrong. He didn’t hold it against her-he’d probably been an asshole at that age too. But he got to go through that without an Empire looking to him for guidance, and picking apart his every action. And he didn’t have grown-ass people looking to take advantage of his puberty-induced stupor. Well, none that did so with such lofty aims.

Did their affair start back then? The thought curls like smoking anger in his stomach, but guilt winds its way around and washes it away. He’d tried to give Billie space. Told himself it was out of respect, but truthfully, he was profoundly uncomfortable with the entire idea of her being sexually active. He knew she was and didn’t mind-she was a grown-ass adult and could do what she wanted. He just didn’t want to think about it.

He should have noticed. He should have protected her, from her own dumb, hormone-fueled decisions. He should have stopped it.

Thomas rolls his eyes. “Billie forgot to lock her door-your imaginations are running too wild, guys. They were asleep, just...in bed together.” He frowns somberly. “At the time, I thought it was kind of cute.”

“You hated her.” Daud blinks. He’s not mincing words-Thomas found Delilah overbearing and invasive. He would have hated life as her husband and puppet. But now, Thomas just shrugs.

“She made Billie happy. I thought Delilah loved her.”

“I don’t think there’s enough left in that shriveled heart of hers to love anybody,” Galia snorts. “But okay, Kaldwin likes both ladies and gents. She’s definitely screwing Gardenia, so they could be either one.”

Delilah was screwing all sorts of people. If Billie were still alive, Daud would make her get tested.

“Which one would be most likely to take up witchcraft?” Lydia taps her chin in thought. “I’m afraid I don’t know the individual siblings as well as I do others. My sisters might know more.”

Jerome just shrugs. “We can all take a few days to gather information. Not like Daud’s going anyplace any time soon.”

Fuck if Daud’s going to be trapped in here with Trimble for weeks. His back would recover quickly, whether it wanted to or not. 

‘I mean,” Lizzy raises her hand. “We could just go total-liquidation on them. Process of elimination and all that shit. If all five Ashworths are dead, we must have gotten the right one, right?”

“Lizzy.” Thomas stares at her, unblinking. “That’s barbaric.”

She smacks her lips. “I’m just saying-”

“No,  _ I’m  _ saying we’re not doing that.” Thomas shakes his head. “I’ve been leaving this to you and Daud because I trust him and, frankly, you both know more about this kind of thing than I do.”

“Don’t go ordering Stride around.” Edgar stares down at Thomas, arms crossed and his nose turned up in the air. “You’re not Emperor yet.”

Thomas yanks his hand away from Daud’s, curling into fists as he jumps up. “You brought me here to be your Emperor, and now you have the nerve to tell me I have no power?!”

Nearly everyone jumps back in surprise at the outburst, all aside from Daud, who merely raises an eyebrow and had no room to recoil anyway.

“My sister was an Empress,” Thomas states, shoulders back and standing tall. “I watched her rule for ten years, studied and learned everything I could so I might one day aid her in running her Empire. Now I’m expected to step into that job, to paint a target on my back and shoulder responsibility for everything that happens under my rule, but I’m not even allowed to demand we limit casualties? Deaths which, by the way, were committed in  _ my  _ name, and ones I will take the blame for when I’m on the throne!”

“Thomas…” Daud would try to reach for his hand, but leaning forward to do so is out of the question, thanks to his bandages.

Thomas rounds on Lizzy, whose eyes are wide open in surprise. “I’m putting my foot down at that, Lizzy. That’s an order. We’re not slaughtering innocents.”

“Nobody’s innocent.” Daud doesn’t realize he said it out loud until Thomas’s head whips towards him.

There’s a million things in that look, all sorrowful, ashamed. And Daud doesn’t want to know what Thomas would think of him, if he knew the truth about Daud.

Thomas straightens his back, sitting back on the cot stiffly without looking at anyone. “I will condone killing Gardenia. But we are not making marks of their siblings to make our jobs easier. That’s not how I plan to rule.” He slides his eyes over to Daud, not quite looking at him but making it undeniably clear who he’s addressing. “That’s not how  _ Billie  _ would have done it.”

How the fuck would he know? Thomas is remembering an idealized Billie, the Empress who cared about her subjects and the sister who loved him unconditionally, cherry-picking memories to only carry the best parts of her. He forgets her rage. He doesn’t know her pain, her anger over her manner of death. Daud knows these things because she lives in the palm of his hand now, watching him draw blood in her name and seeing only the worst of people.

Even if Billie would have acted in the same way, how did that end for her? She’s dead. Daud is trying to prevent the same from happening to Thomas. 

“Alright.” Lizzy’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts. “You fucks heard him. Kid’s got the last word.” She nods. “So I guess y’all got some reconnaissance to do? Daud and I will just kick back while Gails and Jerome look into the Ashworths.”

“I can do some poking around too.” Lydia raises her hand. “I’ll be visiting home in a few days anyway-I can ask Esma and Waverly what they know. But, you know.” She snaps both her fingers. _ “Subtley.” _

“Guess that’s all we can do now,” Galia grumbles. “Well, unless you two have any more riveting news you need to tell us…”

“Yes, yes, all of you out.” Trimble stands up, snapping his notebook closed. “Daud needs to rest, and I-”

“Wait.” Daud holds up a hand, stopping everyone in their tracks. “I...do have something else I need to mention. Unrelated to Gardenia, but...I think it’s important.”

“Oh fuck, is that whale murder weighing on your conscience?” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Hold on to your nips everyone, Daud’s about to confess to mercy-killing a whale they were torturing.”

“Fuck off, Lizzy.” Daud glares at her, but then turns his head back. “No, it...I had a run in with a few Cardinals.”

About half the group sucks in air through their teeth, while the other half look confused for a moment before Jerome mentions the Black Cardinal name.

Thomas grabs Daud’s hand, his past anger melting away. His mouth opens, but no words come out.

“You mean the group that was supposedly behind the Empress’s assassination?” Thalia says boredly.

Thomas turns to her with fire in his eyes. “They  _ did  _ kill the Empress.”

Trimble tries to step in. “Young Lord Thomas…”

“No, don’t say it like that! The Crow Queen  _ murdered  _ my sister. I  _ saw  _ it. So don’t try and convince me my own two eyes are lying now.” He turns back to Daud, the flames dying down and leaving only concern in their wake. “Did they hurt you?”

“Would have been a drop in the bucket, compared to this.” Daud snorts. “No, the thing is, they weren’t trying to kill me. They got a bag over my head. Tried to put a sleep dart in my neck.” They succeeded at that, but Daud would have to bring up the Mark if he explained. Without the Mark, he would have been rendered unconscious. Daud would be the Crow Queen’s prisoner right now. Lizzy and Rinaldo would probably be dead.

Galia curses. “They’re getting ballsy. They don’t normally kidnap people.”

“Could it be they’re getting desperate?” Jerome asks. “I’ve heard some rumors about the Crow Queen being dead-the gang might be in its death throes.”

“Or just under new management.” Galia shrugs. “By all accounts, the Rat King is quicker to kill, but he might have approved some things the Queen didn’t.” Her eyes flick back to Daud. “I highly fucking doubt he would have let you walk away, though. Either of them.”

“I figured.”

“You didn’t tell me this, bitch.” Lizzy slaps his shoulder, and it takes everything in Daud not to yell out in pain. “When the fuck was this?”

“While you were getting beat up by Overseers.” Daud rubs his shoulder. “Oh, right, Lizzy ran into some Overseers too. That happened.”

Edgar makes a sound of protest when they swiftly move on from that, but Lizzy ignores him completely. “So wait, were they trying to capture Daud, or some random asshole waving a sword?”

Daud shakes his head. “They knew who I was.”

“Well, fuck. You think they just caught a glimpse of you, decided to cash in on that bounty?”

“I highly doubt the Cardinals would risk their anonymity to turn him in.” Galia shakes her head. “They aren’t motivated by coin anyway. They wanted information from Daud.”

“Is it possible they found out Lord Thomas’s true whereabouts?” Thalia leans forward, looking rather pale at the idea.

Galia wrinkles her nose. “Fuck, I don’t know what they know. They could know anything. About Thomas, about the Crown Killer, fuck.”

“They mentioned an informant. Woodpecker,” Daud adds.

Thomas looks at him curiously. “In what regard?”

“I don’t recall.” The lie sticks to Daud’s tongue like toffee. “I was slightly preoccupied with not being able to see at the time.”

“This is rather concerning,” Lydia says, worry coloring her face. Across the room, Lizzy snorts.

“No shit, princess.”

“I mean about the fact that they  _ found  _ Daud at all. Unless they truly just stumbled across you two, it means they knew where you’d be.”

“I mean, there  _ was  _ the deal with the Butcher murder,” Jerome points out. “With Ramsey’s feud with Rothwild, it’s not a hard connection to figure out. They coulda been investigating that too.”

“Jerome,” Lizzy says dryly. “Literally no one cared about that besides you.”

Lydia shrugs, still lost in thought.

“It doesn’t mean much besides trouble for us right now.” Galia says, rubbing her temples. She drops her hands and turns to Daud, fatigue creeping into her eyes. “I’ll get my hands on some poison for you, Daud. We don’t want to lose you, but I also doubt you want to live through another interrogation session.”

“I understand. We can’t risk an information leak,” Daud says. He catches Thomas’s look and silences his protests before they even come to his lips. “A last resort, Thomas. I promise.”

Thomas closes his mouth, but he’s clearly not placated.

Trimble shoos everyone out but Thomas, who is practically Emperor and can’t exactly be given orders, and Lizzy, who does what she wants regardless. He claims Daud needs to rest, though when Daud reminds him that he’s been sleeping for an entire day, Trimble waves him off.

“I’ll mix up a sedative, you’ll be out in no time. You’re due for a change in bandages anyway.”

“We can do that before you knock me out,” Daud says dully. He’s not afraid of pain. Trimble, however, just chuckles.

“Trust me, you’ll want to be unconscious for this.”

Trimble leaves for his lab, and Thomas situates himself on Daud’s cot as Lizzy sits and stares out the window. They’re all silent, and Thomas leans over, runs his fingers over the burn scars of Daud’s arm. He snatches his arm away and hides it under his sheets, and pretends not to notice Thomas’s broken look.

“Hey, kid.”

Lizzy doesn’t turn away from the window, but they both know who she’s talking to. She wouldn’t be calling Daud that when he’s old enough to be her father.

Thomas abandons his search for more of Daud’s scars and turns to her, his eyes young and curious. “Lizzy?”

She brushes the heel of her foot against the floor, still watching the sunset. “I’m no good with apologies. Actions speak louder than words, and all that shit. So I won’t waste my breath.” Her heel scrapes against the wood.

Thomas shakes his head. “I meant what I said. I don’t want you killing people left and right.”

“And I meant what I said. You’re going to be in charge of this joint. So as much as I hate it, you’re literally the boss of me.” She looks at him then, grinning. “Be happy, because I sure wouldn’t listen to the other Empresses and Emperors I’ve been alive for.”

Lizzy had only lived through two rulers. Billie’s father had been crowned when Daud was still living with his mother. Daud hides his cough, not wanting to interrupt them.

“Lizzy, I don’t want to micro-manage every aspect of your job. You and Daud know how to do it better than I do.”

“I know you don’t.” She gets up and pats him on the head, a cheesy smile on her face. “And that’s how I know you’re going to be fucking awesome at this.”

Thomas smiles back, but he’s quick to wipe it off, replace it with a more serious expression. “I understand that you two don’t always have a choice, whether to kill. I get that. But...” He leans forward, his eyes focused on the tip of his nose, like he always does when he’s concentrating. “But there could be another way. And if there is one, I’d rather we find it. Some people don’t have to die.” He purses his lips, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment. “My sister didn’t have to die.”

They’re quiet again. Finally Daud has to cough, which feels like getting sucker-punched right in the gut, and Lizzy looks to him, then shoots the doorway a dirty look.

“What’s taking Trunch-bull so fucking long?” she mutters.

Thomas leans over and peers out the door. “I don’t know what he does up there. He won’t even let me inside, I just have to wait outside the door whenever I knock.”

“Yeah, he makes me do that too.” Lizzy yawns and stretches. “You can probably go, Tom-Tom. Daud’s gonna be a potato here soon.”

“Yeah, you go get some sleep,” Daud says, then eyes Lizzy.  _ “Both  _ of you.”

Lizzy shakes her head. “I’m helping. Trimble can’t turn you over with his frail little wrists. Changing your bandages is a two-person job.”

“So I’ll stay and watch,” Thomas states, folding his hands neatly in his lap. “So I can help next time.”

“Nuh-uh, I got it. Don’t worry about your old man.”

“Go sleep in your own bed, Thomas,” Daud tells him. Thomas just gives him a sour look.

“No, I’m staying with you. What if you need something?”

“Thomas, I’m going to be  _ unconscious.” _

“We’ll be staying in the next room over while you’re laid up,” Lizzy informs. “Might not be  _ proper  _ for the young lord to bunk with a lady like myself, but Trimble can get over it.”

Thomas just raises his nose. “I’m staying right where I am.”

Lizzy regards him cooley for a moment, then she jumps forward and seizes him around the midsection.

There’s a burst of yelling and an insane amount of giggling as Lizzy tries her damndest to drag Thomas out of the room. She’s stronger than him, but Thomas also has a good five inches on her. It’s an even match, and Daud watches their progress lazily as they stumble out of the room, not even caring that they had jostled his injured leg. Their laughter echoes down the hallways.

Daud leans back in bed, letting out a breath. Finally alone. 

He holds his hand to his face and curls his fingers. The Talisman appears from black smoke that is gone as quickly as it came.

The Talisman is alive, humming with Billie’s energy. Daud lets out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t been hurt in all that. Hadn’t been taken from him. That dream wasn’t a goodbye.

“What the hell  _ was  _ that, Billie?” he asks. He strokes the surface of the Talisman, trying to keep the memory of her face and hair under his fingertips alive. It had felt so real. Daud had been sure it  _ was  _ real.

_ ‘All the old boundaries are falling apart,’  _ she states.  _ ‘Between the living and the dead, the real and the forgotten. I watch them crumbling and cannot turn away.’ _

The boundaries between the living and the dead. So maybe he did see her. Maybe he did reach out across the expanse of the Void, touch her face, just for a moment. Despite their separation of death.

Did this mean Sokolov could still be alive? Or that girl? What did any of it mean?

Did it mean anything?

“Why, Billie?” He knows she doesn’t need him to lay it out for her. He doesn’t even need to speak. He does so because he likes pretending that he can still talk to her.

_ ‘Whales carry harpoons in their backs, embedded in flesh for decades, chains caught in their bloody teeth. They kill and dive deep to escape the slaughter.’ _

More Void bullshit. That answers nothing. How is it that Billie can see everything, but she can’t see how unhelpful she’s being?

Maybe that’s the problem. Billie knows so much that she can’t comprehend how  _ little  _ Daud knows, how to render the information usable to him.

In any case, she seems to understand that he needs more.

_ ‘It isn’t time yet,’  _ she says calmly.  _ ‘We are both still bound here, thrashing against the chains. But there will come a time where we must part.’  _ She pauses, as if taking a breath.  _ ‘You must allow me to die.’ _

Daud waits, but there’s nothing more. Billie is silent again. Perhaps asleep, in her own way.

Daud hopes. He hopes she can rest, can get some modicum of peace that he’s depriving her of.

Peace she will gain when Daud lets her go. When he says goodbye and releases her into the cold, unforgiving Void. A farewell that he knows will be both too slowly coming and much, much too fast.

 

* * *

 

He’s underwater again. No, that’s just the reflection dancing across the ceiling, the light filtering through the water below.

Daud stands in the sewers again, at the entrance of a cistern. The smell of rot and sickness, the moss slicking the walls and draping down from the grate above, separating them from the pale blue sky.

Below it, a woman cries.

Daud approaches cautiously. He’s not stupid-just prone to stupid decisions. Stupid decisions prompted by virtue-signaling and his own bleeding heart. Decisions like taking in hungry street kids, knowing they’d probably steal from him and be gone by morning. Like dumping all his money into clothes, medicine, books for them when they didn’t. Like following one to Dunwall Tower.

“Please, someone!” The woman sobs. “I don’t want to die down here!”

He’s clean, wearing a stiff coat of sky blue. A watch that Billie had given him for his birthday, that was at the jeweler’s getting fixed when he left on his trip. 

“I was looking for my little boy and I fell...my leg is hurt. I can’t get up!”

A mother. Skinny and young, with ragged boots. He sees her and he thinks of Rose, of her little brother and her unborn child. He thinks of Esma Boyle and her Maria, her aunt Lydia that cares for her like her own.

He thinks of his own mother, how she must have cried for him. How she must have come looking for him, walking up to the little schoolhouse she sent him to for lessons. He remembers, shamefully, that he skipped more often than not. He thinks of how she must have panicked when she realized he was nowhere to be found. When the other kids told her of the tall man who had taken Daud’s hand and led him away. How she must have searched in vain, unaware that Daud was already on a boat carrying him far, far away from her. How she gave up and wept for him. Sometimes when he dreams, he thinks he can hear her howling in grief. 

Daud used to think he wouldn’t be able to live, had someone taken away Billie or Thomas like that. Gone forever, never knowing what truly happened to them. Now, after having them both snatched away from him, he still wonders how he survived. Even knowing Thomas was alive did nothing to ease his pain.

Not for the first time, he wonders what truly happened to Thomas’s parents. Why they never came looking for him. Maybe his mother had suffered a similar fate as this woman, killed by one of Dunwall’s many dangers while her son wandered on none the wiser. This could have even been Billie’s mother. Stumbled after her daughter in a moment of sobriety, regretting her abuse, wanting her back. Falling and dying of exposure because she had drunk herself blind by the time Billie ran away for good. This could have happened to anyone. A parent trying to protect their child. And if Daud leaves, a parentless child.

“Please, please help me!”

He  _ should _ leave. That’s what he said when he first saw Billie, right? Just another street girl, picking through the trash to find something to fill her belly. He couldn’t save them all. He told himself to leave her alone, to deal with his own problems. He didn’t listen then either.

Daud climbs the steps, his gloves sliding up the railing. He never wore gloves as Royal Protector. Why would he need to?

The woman raises her head as he approaches. “Please, it’s my knee.” She raises one long, skinny arm, her veins standing out from her skin in a sickly green color. “I think I can walk, if you just help me up…”

Flowers seem to grow from her very clothing, and a black veil obscures her face. But all Daud can see are those tears. The red hair that reminds him of the girl in Billie’s vision.

He takes a knee, slipping his hand into hers. “Are you alright?” he murmurs.

She’s able to pull herself up with the one hand he offers, though his other hovers at her waist in case she dips. “Oh sir, thank you for finding me! It’s been so awful.”

“I can imagine,” he says. She takes his other hand,  gripping it between her fingers.

“There are such monsters down here!” the woman wails. “You don’t know of the things that lurk in these sewers, horrible things, people and animals…”

“Did you say your son is down here?” Daud steps backwards, but the woman just follows with him, still holding his hands. “I’ll help you look.”

He’s not wearing his handkerchief. Does she recognize him?

The woman just continues to gush. “So many frights. And you came to save me.”

Daud tries to pull his hands away, but she has them in a vice grip.

“There are so many  _ terrible  _ things down here,” she sobs, her tears leaving pale streaks in her make-up. Then, all of a sudden, the tears stop. She blinks. Her mask cracks, and her mouth twists into a smile.

“But  _ nothing,”  _ she coos, pulling him into her. “As terrible, as  _ I.” _

The witch opens her mouth as if to swallow Daud whole, and  _ screams.  _ And Daud blows apart, ripped at the seams and falling away from reality.

 

* * *

 

After the first night, Daud refuses more tranquilizers. It’s a bitch getting to sleep, as the morphine can only do so much for him, but he at least wakes up when the nightmares get bad. 

He’s only two days in Trimble’s clinic. He sleeps, mostly. The painkillers only make him mildly tired, but there’s little else to do. He’s stuck lying flat on his back, so as not to stress his healing spine, aside from the periodic bandage changes. The bandage changing actually hurts more than the burns themselves do at this point. It feels like having his muscle torn from his bone, and he’s amazed that there’s even any skin left to save on his back after they tear away the old strips of gauze and fabric. He tells himself that if he could withstand being whipped until he bled and having seawater poured across the fresh wounds without making a sound, he can certainly withstand this. Still, he finds himself gnashing his teeth and digging his fingers into the side of his cot, waiting for it to be over.

At least his whipping scars were practically erased. 

His flesh is still peeling off him in strips, something that fascinates Lizzy, who watches with rapture and practically squeals with glee whenever Trimble gets a particularly large piece. She herself has a number of blisters on her arms and hands, bubbles of flesh tinged with dark red. When Trimble is out of the room, she uses his scalpel to pop the particularly nasty ones, ignoring Thomas complaints that she was going to get an infection, and Daud’s complaints that it was gross.

The only relief he gets is from the salve mixed from agave sap, which seems to seep the heat from his burns. Lizzy rubs bits of it on herself when she helps apply it to his back, sighing in relief.

After his spine is deemed healed enough to walk, Daud stands up and loudly proclaims that he is returning to his own damn bed. Trimble hesitantly allows him to leave, probably because Daud wasn’t going to take no for an answer and it wasn’t like he could stop him anyway, on the condition that he stayed on bedrest until Trimble said otherwise.

He has to take the stairs one at a time, one arm around Thomas and Lizzy’s shoulders respectively to keep him upright. They put a chamberpot in the corner for him, and someone brings up all his meals so he doesn’t have to use the steps. It’s humiliating, to have to rely on everyone else like this, but Daud swallows his pride and accepts their help with as much grace as he can muster. And he has to admit, it’s nice to not have to wait in line for the mill’s single bathroom or brave the winter cold whenever he needs to take a piss.

True to his word, Daud keeps his ass in bed. It bores him though, and he bitches to Lizzy about it, only to have her smack him upside the head.

“You’re fucking lucky you can still walk, old man,” she hisses. “Fuck, you’re lucky to be  _ alive.” _

It doesn’t stop his complaining, though Daud knows she has a point. Most people didn’t recover from spinal injuries like his. Without the Mark, Daud probably would never walk again. Would be bed-bound for weeks. No, he’d be dead. Dead a million times over.

But he’s not, so Daud grateful he’s at least retained his mobility. He’d be of no use to Thomas crippled. 

People do their best to keep him in high spirits, at least. Lizzy visits daily, making jokes about ‘paying her respects’. Daud threatens to beat her with the cane someone’s managed to procure for him, which he uses to maneuver around the attic. Thomas allows him the use of the audiograph machine he helped Jerome fix and used for lessons, leaving a few musical punch cards within reach. Galia sometimes creeps up, but she’s constantly distracted and ends up cutting their visits short when she remembers something that needs to be done right then and there. Ricardo spouts Serkonan curses at him when he comes up to tend the fire, and Daud fires back until he can hear Ricardo muffle his laughter with his palm. When Rose’s chores bring her to the attic, she makes no effort to hide her singing as she works, knowing that Daud likes to listen to her. Lydia brings him a stack of books from their local bookstore, in large print, to accommodate his far-sightedness. He smacks her hand for that, and she throws her head back and laughs.

She also brings him a blank book, a little thing bound in brown leather. Daud gets as far as putting a pen to the paper, but he can’t bring himself to write. Not that he doesn’t have anything to say-but there’s little he can put into words, little he trusts to remain safe outside of his head. He scribbles in the date, waiting for words to come, but nothing does and the only thing the journal contains is a list of dates running down the first page.

It’s still difficult to read, or even to sleep, but Daud does his best to clear his head and try anyway. He’s useless like this. So he rests, talks to people, reads philosophy works and shitty dime novels, and he refuses the bottles of wine Lizzy keeps bring up.

“So can you tell me any embarrassing stories about Daud?” Lizzy asks, sitting with her legs crossed on Daud’s worktable, sipping her fourth glass of wine of the night.

Thomas laughs and pours himself a second glass. “I could probably think of a few, but I’m rather attached to my remaining limbs. He might be tempted to part me with some of them.”

“It might make me take back your drinking privileges,” Daud shoots from the bed.

Thomas just smirks and holds up his glass, swirling it around before knocking back the contents, barely suppressing his grimace. Daud rolls his eyes.

He’s never explicitly forbidden Billie or Thomas from drinking, except when they were in public. Appearances and all that. Fuck, Billie was nicking miniature bottles of spirits before she was thirteen, downing their contents before Daud could see and smack her for it. He didn’t have anything against alcohol-didn’t care for it personally, but Billie was too damn young to become a drunk. Telling her she was going down the same path as her mother had resulted in a door-slamming tantrum and her giving him the silent treatment for a day, but she stopped stealing the hard liquor, at least.

The Emperor had allowed her to drink wine, which struck Daud as weird because he wouldn’t let her drink coffee, but after he died Daud would only let her drink in private. Word couldn’t get around that the mudlark-Empress was a drunk, and Billie was...sort of a lightweight. He was protecting her image.

Thomas, however, he never had to worry about. He never wanted to drink. So it sort of surprised Daud when he took a glass from Lizzy, but he didn’t say anything. 

The memories give him an idea. Daud sits up, a smirk playing across his face.

“I can tell you an embarrassing story about Thomas.”

“Oooh.” Lizzy raises her eyebrows. “Please do.”

“Please don’t.” Thomas groans.

“Shut up, Tomius, I need material to sell to the tabloids.”

“Do you want to hear about Thomas’s first words?” Daud asks. Really, just his first words to them-he was fairly certain Thomas had known how to speak beforehand, but didn’t for reasons Daud preferred not to dwell on. He could hear and he knew their language, as he would respond to things they said, and Billie was able to guess his name by listing some off until Thomas looked happy at the right one. Billie had tried working words out of him, and Daud hadn’t had the heart to tell her he suspected Thomas was completely mute. Thankfully, he turned out to be wrong about that.

Now, Thomas hides his burning cheeks in his hands. “Not that one!”

“Tell me!” Lizzy leans forward, her eyes wide in excitement.

Daud chuckles. “Okay, so this might surprise you, but I had a bit of a swearing problem back when Thomas and the Empress were kids…”

“You?” Lizzy says in mock surprise. “With a potty mouth? I never would of fucking guessed, Daud!”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up.” Daud waves his hand.

“ Your own damn fault. Kids are like fucking parrots-they repeat  _ everything.”  _ Lizzy grins, leaning back. “I’ve been trying to teach Reed some of the lesser-known ones. Think his sister is going to kill me one day.”

“Oh, she won’t care. She curses around him all the time,” Thomas says.

“Well, Billie already swore like a sailor,” Daud says, forcing a smile onto his face when his chest tightens painfully at the sound of her name. “So forgive me for not bothering to clean up my language. Damage was already done.” And he didn’t think Thomas  _ could  _ speak, so there was no risk of him repeating what he heard. “Apparently I had one particular phrase that I used all too often.”

“I thought it was her name.” Thomas hides his face in his hands. “That’s what you said pretty much every time you called her.”

“What?” Lizzy pivots her head back and forth. “The Empress? What did you call her?”

“I called her by her fucking name,” Daud grunts.

Thomas peeks over his fingers. “But when she was in trouble, which was a lot, he always yelled ‘Dammit Billie!’”

He hadn’t realized how much he said it at the time. But he used it pretty much constantly. Dammit Billie, button your jacket up before you catch your death. Dammit Billie, you’re going to get shot if you keep picking fights like this. Dammit Billie, we didn’t need that, why did you steal it?  

The memories threaten to tear open a new hole in Daud’s heart, but he pushes the feelings away. This is a story about Thomas. Billie’s present, but she’s not the focus. And in any case, shouldn’t it do good to say her name out loud? Something about healing. Daud doesn’t think his scarred and blackened heart is capable of it, and he doesn’t really want to move on, but he still has a few decades of living to go. Thomas needs him. So for his sake, Daud thinks he should try.

“So we went to the market one day,” Daud sets the scene. “Thomas was five, we-”

“Wait, you hadn’t started talking by then?” Lizzy stops laughing. “I’m no doctor, but don’t kids start blabbering when they’re, like, toddlers?”

“I didn’t want to, I guess.” Thomas shrugs. 

“We figured he’d talk when he was ready,” Daud says. Really, he has no idea how old Thomas really was-he had guessed five, and it seemed more or less accurate as he grew. His birthday had been arbitrarily chosen by Billie, though she had only picked it because she had wanted honey cakes that night and knew Daud wouldn’t buy them for no reason. He was undersized due to his apparent malnutrition as well, though like Billie, he grew very quickly once Daud started feeding him. It was entirely possible he guessed wrong.  

“But anyway,” Daud waves his hand. “We were at the market, Thomas was about five and holding my hand. Billie was not, because trust me, you get a lot of  _ looks  _ when you’re a guy with my face with a little girl who’s clearly not related to you.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen pairs like that.” Lizzy sniffs. “You’re considerably less skeevy than the men I’ve seen, though.”

He knows. And as horrible as he was as a guardian, he’s still grateful he found Thomas and Billie before someone like that did.

Daud presses his lips together before continuing. “So we get there and the place is packed. Billie peels away from us, runs ahead to go look at cat statues or whatever.” He actually thinks she was making a beeline for the jewelry stall. She liked looking at the stones, running her fingers over the shiny bits until the stall owner noticed her and smacked her hand away. “This wasn’t really in the best area-”

“And Billie got herself into trouble a lot,” Thomas extracts himself from his hands to fill Lizzy in. “Like, she was a magnet for it. Keep that in mind here.”

He can see it so clearly in his mind, Billie scampering down the boardwalk, in all her twelve-year-old excitement, or thirteen maybe, as her birthday was around that time. Her brown curls bouncing with her steps, her jacket ripped at the back and patched up with mismatched thread in Daud’s shaky, misshapen needlework.

“I’m trying to yell at her to get her ass back.” He stomps down the pangs in his chest, pastes a smile on his face and forces himself to continue on. The funny part is coming up. “And Thomas, this squeaky little blonde kid who can barely reach my hand, rears up and yells at the top of his lungs  _ ‘Dammit Billie!’” _

Thomas is fully red at this point, as Lizzy cackles.

“I thought that was her name,” Thomas repeats.

“Holy fuck.” Lizzy’s laughter dies down. “I can’t imagine that helped endear you to your fellow shoppers.”

“Mmm.” Thomas swirls around his empty wine glass. “I have never seen a man who both wanted to kill everyone present and for the ground to open up and swallow him whole simultaneously as much as Daud did in that moment.”

_ “Everyone  _ turned towards us.” Daud runs a hand through his hair. “Half the market just went quiet. You know what fifty people silently judging you looks like? I do, thanks to this asshole.”

“You’d think people had bigger problems than one fucking kid swearing at his sister.”

“That’s what I thought, but all the dirty looks I got said otherwise.”

“So what happened then?” Lizzy leans forward. “You ever set him straight?”

Thomas turns to Daud. “I mean, you must have, because I didn’t keep calling her that.”

“I don’t remember what I told him.” Daud shakes his head. “What I do remember is deciding that we didn’t need soap that bad and turning around.”

“Billie was laughing for days.” Thomas smiles. “I remember Daud threatening to kick her ass if she kept trying to make me say it again.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“You did! And you yelled at her about how you wouldn’t have to swear at her so much if she wasn’t such a brat!”

Well, that...did sound like something he would say.

Daud opens his mouth to respond further, but the sound of knocking breaks his train of thought.

“Excuse me?” Gerald’s face appears behind the door, peeking in apprehensively. 

Lizzy waves him through. “Come on in, G-man, we got plenty for everyone.”

Gerald opens the door and steps through, followed by a very nervous looking Reed. Daud sees Lizzy blanche when she sees the kid and realizes she just offered alcohol to an eleven-year-old.

“Apologies for the intrusion,” Gerald says. “I-we were wondering if any of you have seen Lady Lydia, or Miss Rose.”

Thomas sits up straighter on impulse. “Why? Can you not find them?”

Gerald begins to respond, but Reed interrupts him.

“My sister and Lady Boyle went to the market,” he explains, hurriedly. “They haven’t come back yet. I was just...just wondering if they came up here, to visit Daud, and I didn’t see them…”

Daud curses and slides his feet out of bed. “They went outside? In the dead of night?”

Lizzy scoffs and jumps down from her perch, while Thomas looks on worriedly. “Is there anywhere else they could be?”

“I don’t think so.” Reed shakes his head. “I already checked...I checked everyplace my sister likes to go, and she’s not there.”

“I found Reed peeking into Lady Lydia’s quarters,” Gerald explains. “They weren’t there either.”

Daud fumbles for his walking cane. Wooden leg, fabric-lined handle. Adorned with a little bone charm Rose made for him, to reduce the soreness where he grips the cane.

Thomas tries to pull it away, push him back down. “We can handle this, Daud,” he tries to reassure him.

“No, I’m going to help.”

“You’re still injured.”

“You think I give a shit?”

Lizzy pushes Thomas away and takes Daud cane-less arm in hers. “Come on, if we make him stay in bed he’ll just fall and hurt himself on the stairs anyway. Daud’s going to do what Daud’s going to do.”

And she was right. Daud was going to help look for those girls, injuries be damned.

It’s the first time taking the stairs since Daud moved back into the attic, and he hates how he has to lean on Lizzy, stand on each step and lean down, put all his weight on his cane before he can maneuver his leg down. Halfway down, Lizzy pulls him to the side so Reed, Gerald, and Thomas can pass them.

There’s a holler when they reach the bottom steps, and Daud can hear the commotion stutter to a stop when Reed steps onto the main floor. When he comes into view, he sees why. Galia, Edgar, and Paul are all in various states of undress, cards laid out on the table and several open bottles surrounding them.

“Warn us if you’re gonna bring the kid in here!” Galia hisses, grabbing for her shirt. Gerald turns away as she quickly re-dresses, but Reed dives right in. “Have you seen my sister or Lydia? They went out to visit the market and haven’t returned.”

Paul noticeably goes paler, and he swiftly gets to his feet, pants still unbuttoned. “You said they went out? Like, outside of the here?”

Reed nods. “Just to the market. It’s only a few blocks away.”

“A lot can happen over a few blocks,” Daud grumbles as he passes Reed by. He knows how close the market is-easily within walking distance, if it wasn’t nighttime and they weren’t in a quarantined district, with plague rats lurking under the streets. And they weren’t talking about two unarmed young women.

Reed looks to the floor like he’s about to cry, and Galia sweeps him into her arms. “Oh, don’t say that Daud.” She fixes him with a glare, then turns back down to Reed. “I’m sure your sister’s totally fine.”

“Saying that isn’t going to make her any safer,” Paul cuts her off, venom in his eyes. “There’s still some Hatter strays wandering about, not to mention the weepers.”

“What I want to know,” Daud says. “Is why  _ Lydia and Rose  _ of all people are galvanting about the district at night.”

“Safer during the night, actually.” Lizzy grumbles. “The risk comes from somebody seeing us.”

Reed turns to him. “They’ve done this a couple times. They usually go right at dusk, and are back within the hour so it’s not too dark. Jerome even said it was okay!”

Well, Jerome was fucking wrong.

“Lemme go get my gun,” Lizzy says. “I’ll go look for them.”

“I’m coming with you.” Paul shoves on his boots.

Edgar stands up, his arms crossed over his chest. He’s the only one who hasn’t bothered to put his pants back on, so he stands there in his boxers. “Stride, you’re getting whipped.”

“They’re our fucking friends, Edgar!” She shoots back.

“Some prissy rich girl is no friend of mine. Wouldn’t be friends with the Stride I know.”

“Well, maybe that Stride is exclusive to that thick skull of yours.” Lizzy holds up her middle finger. “You don’t have to help. I’ll take care of it myself. Like I always fucking do.”

Galia peels off to continue searching the mill with Gerald, just in case they missed the girls. Daud follows the little entourage out to the mall, where the Dressmaker and Jerome already sit near the front gate, looking up at them expectantly as they approach.

“Did you find them?” The Dressmaker gets to his feet. Reed shakes his head, and the Dressmaker’s face falls.

“No. Lizzy and Paul are going to go find them.”

“Should be back soon enough,” Lizzy says, buttoning up her coat. “Only so much ground to cover.”

“If we aren’t, don’t come looking for us.” Paul’s tone is noticeably more serious than Lizzy’s, almost uncharacteristically so. His eyes then slide over to Daud. “You don’t get to come, Daud.”

Daud grips his cane a little tighter. “I wasn’t even going to bother asking.”

They all watch the two leave, fear and hope coloring their expressions. All the while, Daud grips his cane and seethes.

He wants to go with them.

He knows why he can’t, of course. But Paul is bound to the ground, slow and very squishy. Vulnerable. Lizzy has his Bond, but she can’t go Blinking over buildings, look for the girls that way with Paul around. And even if the secret wasn’t an issue, Lizzy doesn’t have access to Daud’s Void Gaze.

Daud hates this, hates his body and this stupid-ass injury. Hates himself for hanging around the slaughterhouse that extra minute. Hates himself for not dying like he deserved.

Now he’s fucking useless. A lump that needed to be fed and entertained. He can’t protect anyone. Can’t even take care of himself. Was this his fault? Daud’s sure it probably is, in some way. Maybe Rose had wanted to go tonight to get some ingredient or something to make a potion to make him feel better. Maybe Lydia had wanted to buy him a new book. If he had died like he should have, those girls might not have decided to go out tonight. It’s always his fault, in some way.

And now he can’t even help. Why the fuck did anyone put up with him? Especially now, useless as he is. Trimble should have just shot him, put him down like a dog the minute Lizzy brought him in. Lizzy shouldn’t have even bothered fishing him out of the water.

Billie apparently objects to this line of thinking.

_ ‘Think for a moment, if the Empress had been rendered the same. If she had lost a limb, perhaps. Would you feel the same for her?’ _

Of course fucking not. Billie was different.  _ Smart.  _ She served more purpose than just swinging a sword. She had more uses than that. If this had happened to her, if she had been left nearly crippled, she could have still ruled. Could have done other things.

It wouldn’t have mattered to Daud anyway. He never could have thought less of her. She could lose all her limbs, be blinded and have her tongue cut out and he’d still die for her. In a heartbeat. She was worth it. She always had been.

But Billie died in her prime, young and healthy. Daud was useless then too.  

Reed sits on one of the benches, arms wrapped around himself as he stares forlornly at the ground. The Dressmaker sits next to him and takes his hand, rubs his thumb in circles over Reed’s knuckles. Thomas takes a seat across from them and tries to reassure the two. He’s good at that kind of thing.

Daud doesn’t know how to comfort people. Never known what people want from him, and he’s usually too fucked up in the head himself to deal with other people’s emotions. The best he knew how to deal with were Billie’s explosions, when she was angry enough to kick and punch and swear at him. He knew how to subdue those, hold her down until she calmed. He never knew what to do with their other outbursts. He’d just shuffle off to the side, let it play out. He’d be there when they were done, but he couldn’t make it any better. Couldn’t even pretend to try.

So he’s glad that Thomas is taking over this job. Daud would be shit at it. Like so many other damn things.

Ricardo shows up at some point. He doesn’t say a word, only leans down to tousle Reed’s hair without looking him in the eye and takes up pacing the area. Hands locked behind his back, staring at the masonry. Jerome hovers near the doorway, checking the voicebox seemingly every minute for sounds outside the door.

Inside, Daud stews. He doesn’t pace, can’t with his fucking back and leg. But he refuses to sit down. He shuffles, hand clinging to his cane and wishing desperately for a cigarette. Anything to dislodge this mass in his chest. 

Something is very, very wrong.

He can’t brush of the thick feeling of dread, the tightness he feels in his lungs. He wants to believe Thomas’s soothing words, wants to think that Rose and Lydia are just lost or late for whatever reason. But he knows that’s not the case, as surely as he knows Thomas isn’t his kid and Billie is dead. He doesn’t know how. He just  _ knows. _

_ ‘Somewhere near, a man has just taken his last breath.’  _ Billie gasps, and Daud’s heart stutters.  _ ‘His eyes are still open!’ _

“But the girls?” Daud grits his teeth, turning away even though he knows that the others can’t see the Talisman in his hand. “Can you see them?”

She’s silent for a moment, then,  _ ‘There is a cloak around her. Sick with death-but I can see nothing more.’ _

At that moment, a chill runs down Daud’s spine. The hairs on the back of his neck all raise at once, and he goes stiff. There’s a fear that takes root in his heart, and he’s suddenly petrified at the thought of looking away from the tile of stone he’d been focusing on.

But he forces himself to. His head snaps to the skylight, searching it for shadows and figures, Lizzy-shaped or otherwise. But all he can see are the stars in the sky, and the feeling washes away like the tide.

“Daud?” Thomas calls him back. “Did you say something?”

He turns back, not bothering to release his hold on the Talisman. “No. Sorry.”

_ ‘He carries your lessons within him. Mine, as well.’ _

Daud blinks, and Thomas turns back around. The Talisman pulses with power, but try as he might, Billie can’t-or won’t-focus her gaze on Lydia or Rose.

Ricardo nearly bumps into him during his rounds, barely stopping to apologize. His eyes don’t even flicker towards Daud. He is intent, focused on the pattern in the stone flooring.

_ ‘They came to Dunwall for the Academy. She was brilliant-would have been the next Sokolov, Ricardo was sure. They disembarked the ship right as the first wave of plague made its rounds.’ _

Was Billie even capable of seeing nicer things, or was their world just that bleak now? He hates the knowledge her voice brings, the horrible insight, but he can’t imagine what it must be doing to her. Billie was never a particularly optimistic person, and Daud never tried to shield her from man’s cruel nature. But now it’s all laid bare for her. There’s something disheartening about the mere thought.

Walking is getting more painful by the step, but Daud continues to shuffle around. He thinks on the pain. Dwells on it. He wants to be out there, in the cold, looking for the girls. He could find them faster. He doesn’t want Lizzy or Paul to get hurt.

Were they okay? 

He doesn’t want to entertain the thought of them being hurt out there. Of Rose and Lydia being hurt or already dead by the time they’re found. But he can think of little else.

_ ‘The conspirators have found a safe haven here. They take great care to ensure they’re not followed.’ _

Okay, Billie.

The speakerbox crackles. Jerome flies to the door, but he’s not fast enough for the people on the other side.

“Whalebone, the password is fucking whalebone.” Lizzy’s voice is hurried, loud. Almost panicked, if Daud has ever heard it on her. “Whalebone, you fuckers, open the fucking door! Now!”

Jerome’s hands are quick to undo the locks, but Daud still has to suppress the urge to reach out and do them himself. He stands back, allows them room to enter.

Lizzy is first to trudge in, her arm wrapped around a very ragged-looking Rose’s waist and holding her tightly to her side. Rose stumbles crossing over the threshold, but Lizzy keeps her upright, brushing her matted hair from her face in concern.

“Lily!” Reed launches himself into his sister, earning a grunt of pain as he makes contact with her stomach. But she just raises her hand to ruffle his hair, smiling down on him lazily.

“Get the fuck out of the way, kid,” Lizzy hisses.

Paul steps in after them. Carrying a very bloody, very limp Lady Lydia Boyle.

“She’s not dead,” he says to Jerome, who’s already on his tiptoes and leaning over in concern. “She just fainted. Think it was the shock.”

“She’s been doing that…” Rose mumbles.

Daud allows himself four more beats, one full exhale to feel relieved. Then he steps forward. “Alright, get inside. Jerome, close the damn door!”

“Of course, sir,” Jerome stammers, and actually jumps to do as Daud orders him to.

Rose is immediately accosted by more than just her brother. Ricardo bounds over and grabs her by the shoulders, pulling her in and kissing her face until she holds him a hand to stop him. He hangs onto her arm, though, as Thomas sidles up to her and gives her a single awkward side-hug.

Her pant leg is soaked in blood. In the literal sense of the word. It’s literally dripping onto the floor, running down from its starting place on the meat of her thigh.

“Reed, run and tell Trimble to be ready for us,” Lizzy barks out, trying to shuffle Rose around while three other people hang onto her. “Bitches are going to need, like, so many stitches.”

Reed doesn’t even respond, just turns and high-tails in back to the mill.

The Dressmaker and Thomas both migrate over to Lydia, still in Paul’s arms. The Dressmaker makes grabby hands towards her. “I can carry her the rest of the way. Your arms must be tired.”

“I mean, I do pretty much have super strength, but...yeah.” Paul has to bend his knees to let the Dressmaker take Lydia, whose head flops to the side as she’s transferred. Four long, red marks on her cheek. Still bleeding.

“What  _ happened  _ to her?” Thomas gapes as the Dressmaker runs off, slightly off-balance. Paul blows out a long, low breath.

“Claw to the face. Lost some blood, but shouldn’t be...too much, I don’t think.”

“What the hell  _ happened?” _

It’s Daud saying it now, and he sees how everyone winces as he says it. He didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but now it has.

Paul raises his hands and shrugs. Rose is the one to answer him.

“We were attacked.”

Daud rolls his eyes. “Yeah, no shit.”

“By who?” Thomas helps Lizzy guide Rose over to the bench, helps her sit down. Her pants squelch as she walks, the blood-soaked fabric sticking to her leg and wetly popping as it detaches from her flesh at every step.

Rose shakes her head. “Got a good swipe in at Lydia first. I tried to stop it, but they just turned on me...got my leg.”

“Jerome, can you carry her to the clinic?” Daud asks. Just another thing he can’t do himself.

“I can walk…” Rose tries to stand up, but she sways in place. Ricardo pushes her back down and slides an arm under her legs himself. He concedes and allows Jerome to pick her up once it’s clear he can’t lift her.

“Who did this?” Thomas asks again, the anger building in his voice. Rose allows her head to rest against Jerome’s chest as he lifts her, her worried eyes unfocused.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see their face.” She bites her lip. “They were completely wrapped up. But they stared at me-they had blue eyes. Light blue.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the beginning fever dream thing, you ever had an idea that's fucking weird but you just cannot get out of your head? That was kind of the deal there. I knew it would be challenging to recreate the chaos and confusion, the false sense of calm and the horror when it all fell away, as well as shove in all the foreshadowing and reverse foreshadowing. (is there a word for that? Just shadowing past events that didn't quite make sense at the time?) So hopefully it made the transition from my head to the screen alright, and it wasn't too confusing who was singing what. For those who want to know, Billie is singing 'Hide and Seek' by Imogen Heap, which you might know as the song Jason Derulo stole the 'Mmm Whatcha Say' refrain from. Deirdre (hope you figured out it was Deirdre-I think there's some line about Deirdre playing the guitar for Billie so there's that) is singing 'Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift and was also featured in The Hunger Games. I'm a huge slut for HG. Sokolov is singing a song called 'The Beating of the Heart', which is a fanmade song written for Dishonored 2 and sung by Harry101UK. Check his Youtube channel out because he's seriously talented! I believe that's the only Dishonored piece he's done unfortunately, but he still has tons of stuff for other games. If you're a Portal fan, RIP the rest of your day.
> 
> Originally I was going to play this up as a total Lady Boyle's Last Party ripoff, because I think that's the only mission from the base game and the DLC's that we don't visit in some manner. Like, 'Oooh, which Ashworth man is Delilah sleeping with? But plot twist, it's the woman! They were lesbians all along!' But it's already established that Delilah was doing gay things with Billie, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch that her mistress was, well, a mistress. Even if Lizzy has to occasionally remind people that gays exist.
> 
> If you want to get into it, feel free to look up some of the symbolism with the birbs and flowers I mention, because there's a lot. If this fic ever takes off I might make a Tumblr post about it, but I think I have about 2 Dishonored followers so I won't bother for now. My symbolism isn't like...stupid deep, like the color of Thomas's coat isn't going to signify his sorrow or anything. It's just blue because he wore blue in the game. (I say this, but Daud's coat color has significance, though he says outright that it's because it's Billie's color so it's not exactly English class symbolism) But there is some extra shit in there if you want to be deep.
> 
> Little factual errors-uh, agave plants actually only grow in the American Southwest, which doesn't really have a counterpart in the Isles? But this isn't the first American desert plant I've referenced here, (Joshua trees, and I'm pretty sure I mentioned some sort of cactus?) so we'll just say there's a desert region in Serkonos that's a combination of the Haina Desert and steampunk Fallout: New Vegas.  
> Are blood transfusions mentioned in Dishonored? I feel like I remember that, but I can't remember where. They weren't really a thing until the 20th century here, but fucking whatever. 
> 
> Next chapter will for sure have witches. I know this because my outline specifies 'witchy business' for the next bit. (I really wish y'all could see my outline-it's very minimalist and ridiculous and I crack myself up) And hopefully it won't take a month. There will be two more chapters until the next 'full' mission, (and I promise we kidnap someone this time) but there's still going to be some action.
> 
> In other news, I started a new game of Pokemon Sun and realized I basically made Rose and Joshua a reverse Lillie and Gladion. Who are also ginger and, you know, plant-themed. Completely unintentional. But also ironic as Rose's real name is Lily. I guess this makes Reed Type:Null? 
> 
> Happy New Year! Hopefully Trump doesn't fuck this one up too!


	13. The Sewers Beneath Dunwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud forms his own coven, with blackjack and hookers. (the hookers are for Lizzy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for descriptions of torture and murder, references to sexual assault...yeah, Daud goes to a pretty dark place at some point. 
> 
> Also why is this the chapter that runs so long?! I seriously anticipated this being about half of what it ended up being. I don't know why word count bloat is so bad with this story. I've NEVER had it this bad before.
> 
> Count the Fallout references.

Daud presses his lips together as he sits, wishing for a cigarette. It’s been a week since his last one. But he can’t smoke in Trimble’s clinic, and he doesn’t have the energy to go outside.

Trimble had tried to kick all the men, including Thomas, out of the girls’ makeshift hospital room while treating their wounds, but Daud had refused. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. But Trimble doubled down on expelling him while they slept, on the basis of his genitalia. Ushered him into the side room where Thomas was sleeping again. Ricardo was also asleep in there, having gone on an anxiety-fueled cleaning rampage and had swept, dusted, and organized five of the six rooms on this floor, and had subsequently collapsed onto the couch. Daud predicts there will be floor scrubbing tomorrow. Everyone else has returned to their proper quarters, trusting the girls in Trimble’s care.

There was a second cot in the room Thomas, and now Ricardo, were sleeping in, open for him. Daud only lied down long enough to hear Trimble ascend the steps to his own apartment before he couldn’t stand to be in the room any longer.

Now he sits in front of the door to Lydia and Rose’s room, fumbling with his walking cane and hating himself. Periodically, he cracks the door open to do a head count. Lizzy, possessing anatomy that was apparently molester-incompatible, was allowed to stay with them. She snoozes on a chair between their heads, head tipped back and her arms wrapped around her midsection. Rose has fallen asleep by now-he’s thankful she was able to, as Trimble refused to give her morphine after discovering her pregnancy. She white-knuckled through her stitches and receiving blood-courtesy of Thomas and the Dressmaker, who knew they were compatible thanks to everyone testing their blood a few days earlier. Lydia really only woke once-asked where she was and if Rose was alright, mentioned that her face hurt and then rambled something about it being Maria’s bathtime. Trimble knocked her out so he could tend to her in peace. Her face would probably scar, but it could have been worse.

Daud listens to them breathe and tries to remind himself that everyone is safe now.

The things Rose had said to him...the wrappings, the claws, the husky voice that whispered something about rat meat when Rose threw her shoe at them. The eyes. She was terrified just telling him and he felt so awful making her recount it, but she gave him all the details she could remember. Wide-eyed and choking back tears. He wanted to tell her she was brave, that Daud would protect her, but the words had stuck in his mouth and Lizzy had to do it. She was surprisingly good at it. Held her hand and told her to rest easy because they were safe in here.

That’s right. They were all safe. He can’t fall into the trap of thinking otherwise.

Daud’s checked the security around the mill-all tall buildings with no roof access, alleyways and other points of entry boarded up or barricaded. The only possible way to get in from the ground was through the mall. Or over it, though Daud’s checked that too. You couldn’t get onto the roof without magic. They were safe from anyone who didn’t have wings. The mill is secure.

Dunwall Tower was supposed to be the most secure place in Gristol. The Emperor and his Royal Protector had assured him of that, that the princess would be very safe living there. The Empress was the highest protected person in the Empire, guarded by the best. Him. A paid assassin had still managed to sneak in and murder Billie with ease. 

Well, they did have help. An insider, Delilah, who undoubtedly helped them get in and out undetected. He’ll have to find out how. Examine their security for weak spots.

The biggest threat to Billie came from someone close to her. Someone trusted. Without a doubt, the same will hold true for Thomas.

He can’t think of anyone on their team who would have an interest in seeing the conspiracy fail-but then he’s falling into the trap of trusting people. Any one of these people could turn on them, but until they do, Daud  _ is  _ rather committed to their safety. He doesn’t want anyone else getting hurt. 

He wishes he could go wipe out Delilah tonight. Their troubles wouldn’t stop once they were in Dunwall Tower, but it would be better than this...whatever this transitional period was. He could get to work on Spymaster things. Re-do their security. Thomas could start actually trying to cure the plague, rather than the thumb-twiddling and hoping the problem will solve itself that Delilah seems to be doing.

He would, if it weren’t for this cursed injury.

His leg is better now, painful, but livable. Rose had joked that they matched now. But her wound was still fresh, still required the stitches to keep her from bleeding out. His looked weeks old, scarred over with little danger of the wound opening again. The source of his immobility was his back. And he knows how Billie would laugh at the fact that his old man back was keeping him down.

But he wasn’t crippled. Wasn’t entirely immobile. Maybe he wasn’t entirely useless.

Daud stands up, leaning against his cane just long enough to assure his balance, then continues on. He’d love to just ditch the thing, but he knows he can’t. Not yet. 

It’s the first time taking stairs by himself since he was injured, and Daud finds himself kneeling on a step halfway between the second and third floor, waiting for the pain in his back to die down. He thinks that maybe sitting would help, but once he sat, he knows he won’t be able to get up again. Not alone. And he refuses to call for Lizzy’s help. He’s fucking Daud. He can climb a few steps.

_ ‘A thousand lives,’  _ Billie whispers.  _ ‘A thousand choices, all converged onto one wounded body.’  _ She pauses, a small, sad laugh coloring her words.  _ ‘One wounded mind.’ _

And wasn’t he the lucky soul.

Daud looks past the door to Trimble’s apartment with Void Gaze. True to his prediction, it’s booby-trapped with a mess of cans and glass bottles tied together and draped over the handle. He can see Trimble snoozing away in a bedroom off to the side, but the trap would wake him. There was no deadbolt, however.

Flicking out his little switchblade he’s started carrying around since Thomas confiscated his real weapons, Daud shoves the blade into the jamb and jiggles until the lock comes undone. He raises his hand to Slow Time as he twists the handle, grimacing against the burn. His magic works like a second set of muscles. He hasn’t used them in a week, and it hurts.

The noise trap jangles as he forces his way in, but he has the door closed and the trap silenced before a second has passed to an outsider’s senses. In his bed, Trimble snorts and rolls over. None the wiser.

His apartment is ridiculously immaculate. Not just that it’s clean-it’s neatly organized, furniture at perfect angles, workstations set up to neatly flow. Books and papers in straight little piles. His strange machines practically shimmer in the rays of moonlight that leak in through the window boards.

Where the hell did he find time to keep this place so clean? He knew Trimble didn’t allow any of the servants into his quarters to clean. Daud didn’t at Dunwall Tower, but it showed. His quarters were always a mess. He kept his area above pigsty-levels of filthiness himself, but he would have figured Trimble thought himself above such lowly tasks. And anyway, who fucking cared how things looked if he never had visitors?

Freak.

Daud pauses to consider for a moment. Trimble was too paranoid to keep the kind of information he was looking for out in the open. No, this would take a little more effort.

He blinks and allows Void Gaze to activate once again. It’s becoming increasingly useful, so honed that he can see the bits and baubles that lie within Trimble’s kitchen drawers, the hidden safe behind a particularly ugly painting of a whaling trawler. And in his bedroom, under his pillow, Daud spots a little book.

Trimble’s door is locked as well, but there’s no trap on this one. Daud cracks it open and approaches the bed on tiptoes. He was always a good pickpocket-his fast hands were what attracted the Actor, after all. So it’s no trouble at all to reach down and slide the leather-bound journal out from under Trimble’s head, sneak out of the room and shut the bedroom door behind him.

Back out in the living area, Daud lights a whale oil lamp with a book of matches he finds in Trimble’s kitchen. Sure enough, this notebook contains Trimble’s musings on the conspiracy, specific people, everything. Little files with dirt on certain members, plans and recipes for strange elixirs and poisons. In a few places, sheets of paper are shoved between the pages, laden with overflow words that didn’t fit into the section allotted for it.

His handwriting slants to the right, letters uniform. Embarrassingly neat. Nobody who wrote this pretty had nothing to hide.

He starts with Thomas’s file first, just to ensure Trimble doesn’t have anything malevolent up his sleeves for him. But it’s mostly observations on his demeanor, noting his high perception and intelligence. He does confirm that Thomas has nerve damage in his arm, though he doesn’t specify why he chose to hide that information from him and Daud. Thomas will likely never regain full control of his hand. Trimble notes a necessity for a dedicated assistant at Dunwall Tower, which strikes Daud as odd. It wasn’t as if Thomas would never be able to write-he’s relearned how to take care of himself with his non-dominant hand, and while his handwriting would never win any awards, he’d get better.

Did Trimble expect to be Thomas’s assistant? Billie had several, to help with inane tasks and her mountains of paperwork so she could turn her attention to other matters. More important matters, more worthy of the Empress’s attention. Her assistants had little power on their own. He would assume Trimble would find that boring and a waste of his talents.

There’s a paragraph noting Thomas’s attachment to Daud, citing it ‘problematic’ and ‘incestuous’, which set off a whole new round of what the fuck in Daud’s head. One line crossed out, so intensely Daud can’t read the original words. Next to it, Trimble writes that Thomas’s blood is too dissimilar to Daud’s, that it’s impossible for them to be biologically related. Daud resists the urge to pen in ‘no fucking shit’ next to it. Trimble remarks that it could be useful information in the future.

Because he’s a selfish prick, Daud looks himself up next. He’s surprised at how much is written. More than Thomas.

His injuries are listed, even the ones Daud sustained  _ before  _ coming here. Trimble makes note of his missing teeth, the scar on his cheek. Mentions his hairline and his few grey roots-Daud thinks he might be jealous, as Trimble is about his age and Daud can’t even tell what color his hair was originally. 

The magic is only spoken about briefly, citing a need to downplay his injuries to cover up the healing factors of the Mark. Trimble notes a page number where his observations on magic will be extrapolated on further. That’s the word he uses. Extrapolate. Who uses that kind of vocabulary in their own personal journal? Daud rolls his eyes and turns the page.

The next bit makes him grit his teeth, bite down the angry fluttering feeling in his stomach before he keeps on reading.

_ Familiar background is unclear, Daud avoids all mentions of his parents. Due to his knowledge of the arcane, the theory that his mother was a witch seems plausible. The rumors of her being a Pandyssian native are likely false. I cannot pinpoint a certain ethnicity for Daud, but he does not have the appearance of a continental.  _

He had always been so, so much lighter than his mother. She could have passed for Billie’s mother more easily than his. He used to wonder how she could love him, with a face that looked nothing like hers.

_ So I cannot determine whether aspects of his personality are due to his biological nature or of his surroundings. Without any sort of ancestry to pull from, I’m left making what I will from personal observations. _

_ Possible borderline personality disorder, exhibits traits of petulant borderline with some self-destructive tendencies. He exemplifies many negativistic traits, leading me to believe he has some sort of passive-aggressive disorder as well as self-defeating, of the possessive type. _

_ Obvious PTSD, characterized by rapid side-to-side eye movement when discussing his work or the regicide. He’s frequently irritable, though it’s unclear if he’s always been like that. Distrustful and paranoid to a fault. Lord Thomas has concerns over his reckless behavior, and has reported Daud has frequent nightmares in which he invokes the name of the dead Empress and thrashes about violently. _

So Thomas has been squealing on him now? A year ago, Daud would have words with that boy. Now he can’t really bring himself to be angry. No, he just feels guilty for making Thomas worry about him. He’s already lost his sister. He doesn’t need to deal with Daud’s bullshit.

_ The Empress’s death and his subsequent imprisonment are obvious sources of trauma, but if some of the rumors from the Tower are true, Daud has lived with symptoms for a long time. Possibly some sort of childhood trauma. Without his cooperation, I may never know. _

No, he’s never going to know. Fuck him for trying to psychoanalyze people. Daud hated people who did that shit.

_ He’s unbearably protective of the young Emperor. I cannot tell if he knows Thomas is not his true son. Nor can I tell if his attachment to him is similar to that he had of the young Empress. Daud’s obsession with the Empress is well-documented, and he becomes increasingly agitated whenever her name is brought up, and outright combative if someone suggests he was behind her murder. I would assume his denial is out of guilt or regret, but Lord Thomas backs up his version of events. I haven’t thrown out the possibility of the young Lord having an unreliable memory, but their stories are consistent without input from each other. I have no choice but to believe that the assassination was truly carried out by a third party at this point in time. _

_ Strangely, Daud doesn’t seem to exhibit any sociopathic or psychopathic traits. He seems able to care for others, such as Lord Thomas and Elizabeth Hat, though he does not exhibit a great capacity for empathy. I have not ruled out that his attachment to certain individuals might be out of a sense of possession than true affection-in fact, it seems likely this is at least partially the case. I cannot speak for his moral compass, but then, such a thing is hardly black and white. His cold demeanor seems to be due to repressing his emotions rather than a complete lack of them. _

_ I will have to observe Daud more closely, and hopefully build up a rapport with him. Earning the young Emperor’s trust will be impossible without his support. Being one of the few people knowing he bears the Outsider’s Mark gives me sway over him, but I must be careful in how I use that power. Daud is an incredibly dangerous man. Our past targets are perfect examples of what happens to one who earns his ire, and I am not keen to be on that list. _

Ugh.

Daud rolls his eyes as he starts paging for the next person’s file. Thomas is far too smart to ever trust a weasel like Trimble. He’d sense his bullshit a mile away.

And if not, well, Daud could always take care of it.

_ ‘There will always be conflict,’  _ Billie whispers in his ear.  _ ‘Always a lust for power, the greedy rising above to take what is theirs. They only see what they reach to take, and they intend to take everything in sight.’ _

“All that wanting,” Daud whispers. “And there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to bring you back, just for a moment.” He grips the Talisman tight, imagining it’s her hand. He wishes to go back to that dream. To touch her face, to feel her hair under his fingertips again. “I know there was so much you wanted to do. Thomas and I will see it through. We’ll fix Dunwall. For you.”

_ ‘I see Dunwall falling to the rats, into hatred and corruption. I see darkness befalling my Empire.’  _ She laughs, a sad and empty sound.  _ ‘If only it were not so.’ _

It won’t be so. Daud will change. He’ll see through the change she wanted. 

For Billie. So she can rest easy.

Daud leafs through the rest of the files, browsing for anything incriminating. He finds out Thalia has asthma and Jerome has a blood clotting disorder, which is interesting. Rose has been hastily added in, just to record her pregnancy. Trimble guesses she’s in her fifth or sixth month, and Daud thinks on how he could just...ask her. Rose would probably have a fucking clue how long it’s been. He still gets her name wrong.

The file on Lizzy mentions burning her letters to her father during the gang war, and writing new ones in their place so old Hat wouldn’t get suspicious. Part of Daud wants to see these letters just to see how Trimble managed to butcher his handwriting enough to imitate Lizzy’s-the other part is only disgusted. He writes on how her stubborn survival ruined his plans for the Hatters, and how her blatant refusal to revive her father’s gang incenses him. But he remarks that she’s currently useful.

Trimble also has to get a paragraph in about the apparent fucking Daud and Lizzy are doing. Daud finds out that he gave Lizzy an experimental birth control shot, which enrages him like no other the moment he reads the words. It’s insulting enough to insinuate that he only cares about Lizzy because he wants to stick his dick in her-he’s not fucking Lizzy, but even if he was, he certainly wouldn’t want children with her. Lizzy would certainly feel the same way. But it’s not about that. He’s angry Trimble felt so entitled to mess with Lizzy’s body, like she fucking belonged to him. 

He’s so pissed about it he wants to throw the book away, but he forces himself to skim through the rest of the pages. Nothing more of interest, really-medical terminology and whatnot that he couldn’t hope to parse. The section on Daud’s abilities tells him nothing he didn’t know already-there’s plenty Daud could add to it, but he’s not giving Trimble any more to work with.

Daud snoops through Trimble’s work area before he returns the journal. A few dissected rats-which are gross, by the way-and colored liquids in bottles and beakers. They’re all labeled with strange combinations of upper-case letters and numbers. Daud hasn’t a clue what they all mean.

He wishes he did. He would have loved to attend a real school, or even the Academy. As Royal Protector, he wasn’t technically required to sit in on Billie’s lessons, but he often did so anyway. He liked it. He liked watching her curious mind at work, feeling proud and a little bitter that he hadn’t been able to give her this, but he also just liked learning for himself. It was often difficult keeping up, as Billie’s lessons moved along rather quickly and he wasn’t the student, but he’d study her textbooks and read her own notes to better understand. All at night, because Billie would try to help him if she knew he was trying to learn as well, and he didn’t want to slow her down. He never admitted it to her or Thomas, but much of the time, Daud felt embarrassingly stupid.

There are a few syringes, lined up in a drawer, that have the words ‘Stimulation Package’ written on them. Daud skims over the sheet of paper inside, trying to make sense of the recipe. Calcium and shit, things that helped with bone growth. Bone.

This was what Trimble had used on Lizzy, when she broke her rib. It hadn’t healed it instantly, and Daud’s Bond had certainly helped, but…

Biting his lip, Daud picks up one of the syringes. Hopefully Trimble wouldn’t notice one missing, or would just assume he miscounted the last time he took stock. 

He lines the tip of the needle at the base of his neck. The cold metal touching his skin makes his chest tighten something painful, and Daud has to pause. He doesn’t take the needle away, though, or else he’ll run out of nerve. This would be far easier if he had someone doing it for him. But he knows whoever he wakes up would likely object to this, saying he shouldn’t be taking things Trimble hasn’t prescribed.

But Trimble doesn’t  _ understand.  _ No one here does, that Daud is a goddamn drain on their resources. That he needs to be doing shit about their situation. He can’t just sit around and think about it. That he can’t...he can’t do this anymore.

There’s blood in his mouth. In his anxiety, Daud bit his tongue. He grabs something cylindrical and wooden and shoves it between his teeth. He has no idea what it’s supposed to be, but hopefully Trimble won’t miss its presence. Then he raises his hand up again, lines the needle up with his vertebrae and begins pushing down on the plunger.

The pain is immediate. It’s a hardness that spreads down his spine, like his muscles are becoming bone and his bones are turning to rock. It forces the air out of his lungs, and it’s all Daud can do to bite down and hold back his scream.

When he’s done, his arms are shaking. He removes the needle and tries not to shudder at the sound it makes when it leaves his flesh. The heat has set in, like his bones are red-hot pokers and burning him from the inside out. His back is beginning to sweat. He spits out the piece of wood and shoves some cotton into his bleeding mouth.

Daud chokes down the pain long enough to slip Trimble’s journal back under his pillow, collect his shit and exit out the door in the same manner he entered. Then he goes and lays on his cot until morning, trying to bite back his moans of pain.

 

* * *

 

Daud is in the garden again. The patio at Dunwall Tower, amidst the rose bushes and lavender.

This occurs nearly every night now. He’s brought back to that day, with his powers and memories and all his knowledge intact. Given free will.

Every night, Billie is returned to him. And every night Daud wants nothing more than to hold her in his arms, to marvel at her breathing and her beating heart. But he never has time to spare, so every night he has to swallow that hole in his chest that just keep widening with time. Every night he has to lead her away, fight her assassins, save her.

And every night, she dies.

Daud’s tried any number of tactics. Running to retrieve the guard before they can get too far away, telling Billie to run while he stays behind. Pushing her down and covering her with his body, refusing to move.

It never works. Daud returns to the pavilion with back-up only to find Billie eviscerated, sees her take a bullet to the head in full view of her guards. Pulled off her and made to watch as the Rat King brings his heel down on Billie’s neck and crushes her throat, like squashing a bug.

They can never do the kind thing and just kill him first either. They always take pains to ensure that Daud lives, that he watches her die. And that’s only when the nightmare ends. When her heart stops beating, Daud will wake up back in Draper’s Ward, that summer day fading into the freezing Month of Ice. Remembering he’s only here because he failed that day, and now he failed again.

Still, Daud can’t allow it to dissuade him. There has to be some way to save her, something he’s missed all these times.

And even if not, he has to try. He owes this to her. Billie, who’s extended her meager existence to help him, deserves all the effort in the world. Even if he repeats this exercise every night for the rest of his life, it couldn’t begin to compare to what he’s putting her through. 

If he fails, it’s penance. He doesn’t know what success would mean. 

Billie smiles at him. Daud swallows the lump in his throat and draws his sword.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Lizzy?”

Lizzy turns with her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. She makes a face as she finishes chewing and swallows, swiping the back of her hand over her mouth. “What the fuck is up?”

Jerome stands in front of their table, looking rather nervous about the fact. “I hate to bother you guys, but the Dressmaker heard some noises coming from the sewers this morning. We’re pretty sure it’s just a weeper, but…”

“You want me to go down and deal with it.”

“Kinda, yeah.” Jerome grins sheepishly. “We’d ask Daud, but…”

“I’m right here.” Daud grunts.

Thomas glares him down over the rim of his coffee cup. “But you’re not supposed to be,” he chastises. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

“Daud’s not supposed to be doing shit,” Jerome affirms. “Not until Trimble gives him the all-clear. So can you take care of it, Stride? Preferably soon.” He rocks a bit on his heels. “We want to get it done before Reed finds out and flips a lid. You know kids.”

Lizzy sighs and knocks back her morning whiskey. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll take care of it later. Can I finish my breakfast first?”

Daud leans forward after Jerome leaves, keeping his voice low. “You’re taking me with you, right?”

“What?” Lizzy’s face screws up in disgust. “No, old man. I can handle this by myself. I’m a big girl, you know.”

“You’re still hurt, Daud.” Thomas stares him down.

Daud rolls his eyes. “I feel great. I’m totally healed. _ ” _

It was amazing what two days with Trimble’s special stimulus package could do. The first twelve hours or so were agony, feeling his muscles knit back together and his bones regrowing at an accelerated pace, but it’s been practical bliss since. Daud still hurts, of course, but the pain is manageable, the kind he can grit his teeth at and continue on without collapsing and freaking everyone else out. He’s been able to take the stairs by himself.

He’s doing his best to resume his normal schedule, whatever that is now. The girls are still in the infirmary, but they seem to entertain each other pretty efficiently. Daud was there once to drop off some books, but he had to cut his visit short as the smell of alcohol and bleach made him feel physically sick.

With both his tutor and his friend stuck in hospital beds, Thomas has little to do as well. He spends a lot of time with Daud, which is nice, but it makes Daud feel guilty. Thomas should be off doing teenager things, not entertaining his old-ass Protector. 

Lizzy’s taken to joining them at the table Thomas usually takes lessons at. She claims it’s because they look so pathetic, sitting over here by themselves. Daud thinks she’s fighting with Edgar. He hasn’t seen them so much as exchange a word with each other since the night of the attack. Part of him wants to ask, but he and Lizzy aren’t that type of friend. 

Really, he doesn’t think Lizzy has friendships like that. Daud doesn’t either.

Lizzy rolls her eyes in response and shoves her fork into her mouth. “I don’t need help. I can take care of one damn weeper.”

Daud sits back, tries to let her be, but he still internally goes over it. “How are you going to get into the sewers?”

Lizzy gives him an odd look. “There’s an entrance outside, by the water wheel?”

He’s never looked too closely. The only time he’s ever even thought about that area was to worry about Reed falling. But Reed watches where he steps and there are no other children around, so Daud sort of forgot about it.

“There is?”

“Yep. And in the basement. We lost the combination to that one though, so it’s shut up for good. Lock outsmarted us.” She starts tearing apart her slice of bread. “Trimble has the key to the door outside, so I’ll get it from him.”

How the hell had Daud missed that? He knew about the basement-but it’s been shut up since he got here. He didn’t know it connected to the sewer. How fucking stupid of him. Here he is trying to keep Thomas secure and protected, and all the while there was a second point of entry to their hideaway that he didn’t even know about. That can’t fly.

It makes him slightly relieved to know there’s a way to evacuate, though. If the mill were breached, they could escape out the sewers. If only they could make that door one-way.

After Lizzy leaves, Daud scoots his chair closer to Thomas and speaks lowly. “Have you talked to the girls about the attack?”

Thomas shakes his head. “Lydia doesn’t want to talk about it. Rose said you questioned her…”

“I did.”

They stare at each other, stoic and scared. Finally, Thomas leans forward and speaks in a whisper. “Do you think it was the Butcher?”

Daud presses his lips together. “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully.

It would be almost easier to say it was the Butcher. Daud doesn’t want to consider the fact that there are two-sorry, three-prolific serial killers on the loose. Simpler if they could blame it all on the Butcher.

But then Delilah would have had to send them. It makes his skin crawl, the thought of the Butcher poking around so close, the possibility of Delilah knowing where they are. But the attack happened outside the mill. Whether the assailant had known people were hiding here or not, they hadn’t been looking for Thomas. They would have tried to get inside if that were the case.

He could believe it was the Butcher if they had targeted Rose first. The Coppers were witches. Delilah had taken her brother captive and she was actively hiding from Abele-it would make sense for Delilah to set the Butcher on her. To either silence her or keep her from using her magic against Delilah in the future.

But they hadn’t. Their target was Lydia. And Delilah was fairly neutral with the Boyles. Actually, they were one of the untouchable families, in thanks both to their wealth and their relationship with Prime Minister Burrows. There was no reason for Delilah to want Lydia killed.

Those things didn’t add up, but there were still enough similarities to make Daud nervous. Rose describing the figure as almost animalistic. The claw marks on her leg and Lydia’s face, when the Butcher was known for tearing people apart with their bare hands.

And there was Daud’s dream, the eyes that matched up so closely to what Rose had seen. It left him no doubt it was the same person. And he’s remembering those red lips, distinctly feminine. Lydia told him the Butcher was probably a woman. Not that Daud thought it was a ridiculous notion like Jerome seemed to-he’s seen Lizzy work, watched his female guards in action, been on the end of some of Billie’s attacks, so Daud knows a woman would certainly be capable of it-but Jerome did have a point. Men and women had different patterns to their killing sprees. A female serial killer, displaying this level of barbarism, was unusual.

It was too weird. Daud didn’t know what to think of it. 

Thomas looks down. “I told them they shouldn’t leave without an escort now. They’ll bring Paul or somebody along, if they need to go somewhere.”

“That’s good, but that’s not why I brought it up.” Daud fidgets with his thumbs. Female, murderous, close to Delilah. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. “I know this is an awkward question to ask, but can you name any of Billie’s other lovers?”

Thomas makes a face. “Can you not call them that?”

“Sorry. Other women. Possibly ones she met through Delilah.”

“Not a whole lot.” Thomas shrugs. “You’d know most of them, Lady Bellacor and Countess Marriott...”

“Those were hook-ups.” Daud takes a drink, wishing it were alcohol. “Were there any other long-term relationships?”

Thomas shakes his head. “If she had them, she hid it pretty well. You know she didn’t like talking about her love life.”

Yeah. She was so good at hiding it, Daud didn’t even notice the teenaged Empress fucking her Spymaster.

Thomas taps his fingers against the table, his mouth set in a line. “I can’t think of anyone else who would hold a grudge.”

He didn’t think the Butcher, or their masked assailant, was truly a scorned lover. But Delilah had used sex to weedle into Billie’s trust. She could have very well sent another witch to do the same. And that’s where they might find their needle.

The thought enters his brain like a bullet. “She’s not the only Kaldwin. Doesn’t Delilah have siblings?”

Thomas nods very slightly and sips his coffee. “She had two. A brother who died at birth, and a sister her age. Half brother and sister, actually.”

He remembers that Delilah wasn’t the original Kaldwin heir. She was a bastard, like Billie, but unlike Billie, her father was married. Euhorn Kaldwin had an extramarital affair that had resulted in Delilah. Scandalous in a different way than a dismissed gardener giving birth to the Emperor’s heiress behind a dumpster.

“Is her sister older than her?” Not that it mattered. Her sister was born of Euhorn’s wife, and would therefore be his primary heir, unless he specified otherwise. Daud’s just trying to establish the facts in his head, get a story in order before he starts cobbling together theories.

Thomas coughs. “I don’t remember.”

“Where is she? Why haven’t I seen her at court?”

“She was…” Thomas stares at him oddly. “She’s  _ dead,  _ Daud.”

Daud blinks. “When did that happen?”

“Like, a decade ago? A year after her father died.”

He remembers  _ that  _ part. Euhorn had died literally three weeks after they came to Dunwall Tower. He was in rather poor health already, but he had made the effort of getting to his feet and bending to kiss Billie’s hand. Kindly. Besides the ball where she was presented, his funeral was the first state function she attended as Crown Princess. He remembers how out of place she felt. Dress and full petticoat, shoes that pinched her feet, her hair straightened with irons and woven into a braid that had nearly reached her waist. People had stared at her. Some cornered her and questioned her on her political knowledge and ideology until she ducked away and ended up hiding behind some drapery, crying.

Euhorn’s daughter, though? Daud tries to remember, but there was  _ so  _ much going on at the time. All the preparations going into getting an Empress fit to rule, Daud becoming her official Protector, the Emperor’s death and Billie’s coronation-and all the day-to-day crises and bullshit that happened in between.

“What was her name again?”

“Jessamine. She was really nice.”

It’s foggy, but the picture is starting to come together. He can remember a woman sitting at Euhorn’s place in court, taking control of his parliamentary votes. Slim, shorter than Delilah, hair so dark it was almost black. She was there when Billie took over court after her father became too sick. And she was there for the first session Billie conducted officially as Empress. Daud can’t remember if they ever even spoke. If she disliked Billie, or what she was capable of.

Where had Delilah been, when her sister was around? He had seen her a few times before she rallied to become Spymaster, but he never even heard her name in the early days of Billie’s rule. It was like she hadn’t existed before she took her sister’s place at court. There’s something, about Delilah disappearing for a year or so, that sounds familiar. Vanished without prompt and popped up again without explanation. Dunwall being Dunwall, people said she had a child. Knowing Delilah, Daud guesses she was studying witchcraft.

Thomas continues to stare at him. “We went to Jessamine’s funeral, Daud, don’t you remember?”

“You would have been seven, I wouldn’t have taken you to a state funeral.”

“I remember being there.”

“You might be thinking of a memorial service.” Daud shakes his head. He doesn’t remember either. There had been so many funerals.  Most of them old, greying men who were rather rude and full of themselves anyway, so it was hard to mourn them. But Daud feels like he should have remembered the funeral of a pretty young woman, only a decade older than his Billie.

“Maybe,” Thomas shrugs. “Both their mothers were dead by then, so Delilah was the only Kaldwin left. She played up the orphan angle a lot.”

“Hmm.” Sounded like her. “How did her sister die?”

“Oh, it was a huge scandal,” Thomas says, too excitedly for the context. Thomas has never been a bad gossip but, well, he’s always been a gossip. “Her and her bodyguard were sleeping together. She started receiving suitors, and I guess he got jealous.”

“He killed her.” The words feel like sand in his mouth.

Thomas nods grimly. “He hacked her to death with his sword. No, I was totally at her funeral, because I remember her coffin being closed the whole time.”

Daud mulls on it while Thomas takes a long drink. 

“Delilah brought it up a few times,” Thomas says, his eyes far away. “The irony. How her sister was murdered by a jealous lover, and then the same fate befalls the love of her life.”

“Delilah didn’t love her,” Daud mumbles.

“I know.” Thomas looks down. “I knew that then, too.”

But she still had to sell the story. And what a tragic backstory it made. 

At least he knows where she got her ideas. It showed Delilah wasn’t quite as imaginative as she liked to think. Arranged for Billie to share the same fate as her half-sister, have Daud play the role of Jessamine’s bodyguard. And he wouldn’t put it past Delilah to have orchestrated her sister’s murder as well. From the start, he knew this was a game Delilah was familiar with playing. The pieces would fall exactly the way she already knew they would.

Except Daud wasn’t meant to become a weapon, honed against her. That part didn’t fall into place.

“And the bodyguard? You’re sure it was a man?” Thomas nods, but that proves nothing. “I’m guessing he was sent to prison?”

“He died.” Thomas says neutrally. “He committed suicide after killing her. Jumped into the ocean. They never found his body.”

How...ironic.

Every part of this, every facet of Billie’s execution was perfectly planned out for maximum emotional impact. To draw parallels, to make Delilah all the more sympathetic.

It was extremely poetic, and entirely fake.

A door slams open at the end of the room, and bare feet slap across the floor.

“Move.” Lizzy twists to avoid Gerald, standing and staring at her with befuddlement. “Out of the way. Hey, hey Daud!”

She skids to a stop, slapping one hand against the table and the other on Daud’s shoulder. “Heeeey.” She grins cheesily at Thomas. “I need to borrow Daud for just a quick moment, we’ll be right back!”

“What do you need him for?” Thomas raises an eyebrow. “Daud is supposed to be on bedrest.”

“Nothing like that, Thomas, I just need to talk with him about a thing.” She tugs on his shirt. “Some adult business, about our  _ jobs.” _

Daud blinks at her before picking up his cup and sipping the last of his coffee. Lizzy pulls him out of his seat and he has to quickly gulp the contents down and slam the coffee cup back onto the table before Lizzy pulls him away entirely.

“We’ll see you later, Thomas, bye!” She turns to Daud, her smile falling off her face as she hisses. “Daud, you motherfucker, we got ourselves a  _ situation.” _

 

* * *

 

Daud leans over as he breathes. In and out. He tries not to clue Lizzy in to his panic, but she’s still looking at him with more sympathy than sarcasm.

“You’re sure?” he says at last, once he thinks he can speak without the gasping the words. Lizzy throws her hands up in the air.

“You think I’d come at you like that if I wasn’t sure?!”

“But-” Daud places a hand on the brick wall, trying to remind himself where he is. “How did they find us?”

“That’s why I needed your fucking help,” Lizzy says in a low, angry voice. “I killed two of them, but they mentioned others. I wasn’t about to ask.”

“You hid the bodies, right?”

“No, Daud, I propped them up on chairs and left them to have a tea party with their murder friends!” Lizzy’s sugary smile drops off her face, and she crosses her arms. “Of course I hid the bodies. Though the rats did most of the work.”

Gross. But efficient.

“And you’re sure they’re-”

“Yes, Daud, I’m fucking sure they’re witches!” she shrieks, then looks around in a panic. The mill yard is deserted, however, so they’re in no danger of being heard. “I mean,” she lowers her voice. “The were dressed exactly how everyone says. No underclothes or...just underclothes. Fancy hats. Flowers.”

Flora and a penchant for improperly dressing themselves. Definitely matched every description of Delilah’s coven they’ve heard.

Daud bites back the bile in his throat.

“I mean, it looked like they were just poking around…” Lizzy kicks a pebble with her bare toe.  “Might be a coincidence.”

“I consider the word ‘coincidence’ to be profanity, along with ‘astrology’.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re full of shit?”

Daud sighs and leans back against the wall. Lizzy hovers in front of him, uncertainly.

“Uh, Daud? Are you having a heart attack or something?”

“I’m not quite that old, Lizzy.”

She shrugs. “You just look pale. Even for your pasty ass.”

Daud gives himself to the count of ten to fucking collect himself and stand up, shoulders squared and swinging his arms to loosen his sedentary muscles. “Okay. So I guess we’re going to go kill some witches.”

“You sure?” Lizzy raises an eyebrow. “You don’t look ready to-”

“If you don’t think I can do this, then why did you come to me, Lizzy?”

She opens her mouth, but then looks away with a huff. “I thought you’d have a better fucking idea!”

Daud isn’t an idea guy. He’s a doer.

“We need to seek out those witches and find out why they’re here, by  _ any means necessary.”  _ The words rise up like knives in his throat, and Daud finds himself focusing on Lizzy’s semi-webbed toes. “Then we shut them up for good.”

His heart seems to pang as if someone’s ringing it like a bell, and against his own will he presses his hand against it as he breathes.

Lizzy grabs him by the shoulder and turns him to face her. “I’m on board with that. But if we go down there like this-” She jabs him in the chest. “You are going to fucking die.”

He pushes her hand away. “I’m not going to die.”

“I’m not hauling your body back through the sewers, old man.”

“I’ll be  _ fine,”  _ he says. “I just need some painkillers.”

“You’re not going like this.”

“Obviously not. I’ll need my weapons.”

Daud turns and makes for the mill. Thomas had hidden his supplies, but Daud has back-ups. He’ll have to find something else to wear though; Jerome is still trying to salvage his armored coat.

Lizzy jogs to keep up with him. “I’m really not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

“Nope.”

“I can get you painkillers,” she says. “Kept a stash in my room ever since my immune system tried to kill me. But don’t be stupid about it all, okay?”

“Lizzy,” he turns to her, keeping his face as blank as possible. “Have you ever known me to make stupid decisions?”

She stares at him dully. “You really want me to answer that?”

They sneak up the stairs, mostly trying to avoid Thomas but also anyone else who might tell on them. Daud lets Lizzy trail behind him into the attic while he makes a beeline for his chest of drawers.

“You know, I felt bad for you when they first gave you this room, but now that it doesn’t smell like dust and rat shit, it’s actually pretty cozy up here.”

“It’s fine.” Daud starts rummaging through his drawers. He actually quite likes it up here, this little space he shares with Thomas. “Do you have some clothes I can borrow? Something with a little more protection?” He goes to take his shirt off, but winces as the motion pulls on his still-healing muscles.

He feels hands on the shirt, and Lizzy pulls the fabric over his head. “Don’t think anything of mine will fit you,” she says as she grabs his underarmor. “We can roll up the sleeves on one of Edgar’s coats, see how that works. Wear your own pants, though. You do not want to know what’s happened in that boy’s pants.”

“Noted.” It’s fucking weird, to have Lizzy help him dress, but he knows she’ll get pissy if he tries to thank her for it. He only needs help with his shirt, thankfully. Can change into a more durable pair of pants by himself. Bends over and changes his socks, shoves his feet into his work boots, which were mercifully spared most of the flames. It would suck to have to use the pair of boots that he wore around base, warm but not at all sturdy.

“You said Tommy-boy confiscated your equipment, right?” Lizzy asks once he’s finished dressing himself. 

Daud nods and gets to his feet. “Yeah, but I kept a few holdouts. I like having a plan B.”

He pulls one of his desk drawers open, only to be greeted by the grainy, wooden bottom. Empty. He had two pistols in here, a pack of sleep darts and extra bullets, and a grenade. Not exactly an armory, but enough to dispatch a few intruders if he was away from his multi-pocketed coat. Now it’s all gone.

“Take your stash?” He can hear her grin in her voice, but Daud just grumbles and slams the drawer shut.

“Sure I can find where he’s hidden it all…”

“Don’t bother for now. You can take my wristbow-I got a pistol, I like the big booms anyway.” She shrugs. “Think we can ‘borrow’ someone’s blade for a few hours.”

“Not necessary.” Daud turns to the table they set up in the corner, with Billie’s hairpin and the coin with her face on it. The candle that Daud lit every morning and they kept burning for her all day.

Daud carefully slides the sword he stole at Coldridge from the set-up. Thomas wouldn’t touch it. Would think Daud had the integrity not to, either.

Lizzy raises an eyebrow. “I was going to ask about this, but I figured it might be a touchy subject.”

“It is.” Daud digs around his drawers of junk for the scabbard the blade was in originally, tying it to his belt. Lizzy hovers behind him uncertainly.

“Do you...want to talk? About her?” Lizzy shrugs. “Not right now, of course. Like, later. After we get drunk.”

“I don’t drink, and this is not a conversation I’m willing to have right now,” Daud states simply, then turns on his heel and walks away.

Lizzy pauses, but after a moment, he hears her bare feet against the floor. “Well...good. Nobody likes crybabies.”

A few minutes later, they’re in Lizzy and Edgar’s little bunkhouse. Daud swallows a few pills from Lizzy’s morphine stash while he watches her pawn through Edgar’s disorganized possessions, looking for his Navy coats. Daud knows exactly where they are due to his spying sessions, but he doesn’t inform Lizzy of this.

“He had one with plates in it…” She mumbles as she works. “He got shot in the chest once with it on. Bullet literally ricocheted right off.”

“Sounds heavy.” Daud doesn’t like heavy. He needs to be light, fast. Wouldn’t need to worry about surviving injuries if he never got hit.

Lizzy makes an annoyed sound. “Yeah. He hated wearing it, even after it saved his life.”

Lizzy’s not one to talk. She complains about their bulky coat and clingy underarmor constantly. She’d probably fight wearing nothing but a camisole if she had it her way.

“You’re wearing the boots I bought for you, Stride.” It’s an order, not a statement.

“You didn’t buy them, old man, Jerome did.”

“I gave him the money. You’re wearing them down there.”

She turns to stick her tongue out at him, but grumbles and turns back when Daud mentions the word ‘trench foot’.

Daud’s always been weird about shoes. For years after he came to Dunwall Tower, he slept in his boots. They were a grounding point. Always made him feel more secure, better with a good pair of shoes on. Shoes were the first thing he ever bought Billie. Hers had been more fabric than leather by the time Daud tried pulling them off her feet, trying to save her frozen toes, and accidentally tore one of them. She stuck around an extra day so he could replace them, then another four because she had gotten a fever and Daud wasn’t going to turn her out when she could barely sit up on her own. She spent another week gathering the coin to pay him back for the boots, coin he had refused and asked her if she had ever heard of a fucking gift, then smiled when she said her mother told her not to accept gifts from creepy old men. At that point, they were used to each other. There was little trust, but enough for Billie to feel comfortable taking the boots he bought for her.

It’s not as cold as it was that winter, but Daud’s more concerned with Lizzy stepping on shit. Lizzy, however, seems more preoccupied with getting him proper armor than outfitting herself. He knows Lizzy just doesn’t want Daud to get hurt again. She’ll never admit it, but she’s worried about him.

It makes him feel bad. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Daud is the older one, the experienced one. He’s supposed to be the one protecting.

“Aha, this bitch!” Lizzy holds the coat up, grinning. “Put this fucker on. Shouldn’t be too bad of a fit.”

It’s heavier than he’d like, but not as bad as he was imagining. Daud tries not to stare at her too much as she straightens out the lapels, helps roll his sleeves up. Watches her nose scrunch up as she concentrates, how her eyes give away her vulnerability when she’s not putting on a front for him. He hates worrying her. And Daud’s worried about her too.

Lizzy does not come to him for help. If she needs help from people, she disguises it as orders and pretends it’s out of laziness. But whatever she saw down there made her think she was in over her head.

Daud has recovered quite a bit, but he’s still not in peak shape. And that’s just not acceptable, with their line of work. He cannot fail. Ever. And if his injury causes him to falter down there, with whatever threat that made Lizzy Stride second-guess herself, he’ll be leaving her alone in a wolf’s den. She’ll probably try to protect him too. She’ll get herself killed if she does that.

He allows the magic to pool at his hand, and the Mark’s glows through the black fabric around his palm. Lizzy steps back and watches it, the blue light bouncing off her nose.

“Would you trust Edgar,” Daud asks, letting the magic fade. “With this?”

There’s no hesitance. “No,” she says, he eyes flicking up to him with only blandness and neutrality in place.

Daud is slightly surprised, but only slightly. He wants to know, but knows enough that he shouldn’t ask. He blows a long breath out before continuing. “Who would you trust?”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

“That’s smart,” Daud agrees. “But if you had to pick.”

Lizzy crosses her arms, eyes rolling up to the ceiling as she thinks. Daud tilts his head as he watches her.

“Reed, probably.” Lizzy snorts. “But I doubt either of us could sleep at night if we put a kid in that position. No, Paul. Has to be Paul.”

Daud raises an eyebrow. “You trust Paul over everyone else here?”

Lizzy shrugs. “He’s weird. I like weird. And nobody acts that weird when they’re trying to hide something.” Her eyes flick to him suspiciously. “Why? Do you not like him?”

“I’m impartial.” Though Daud is actually rather fond of Paul. Much rather share his magic with him than Edgar. Paul wouldn’t be his first choice, though. “But if you think we can trust him with this, then I’m with you.”

“You’re serious about this, then?” Lizzy drops her arms to her side. “Giving the Bond to someone else?  _ Can  _ you even do that?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Daud nods, then once more. “I’m completely sure. And it wouldn’t hurt to have others to train with.” He has to smile then, looking at her mischievously. “Why? Are you _ jealous?”  _

Lizzy shoves him. “No, I just want to be sure  _ my  _ powers aren’t going to suddenly disappear because you gave them away.” A small smile plays across her lips, but she turns away before Daud can really get a good look at it.

“I’m definitely sure that won’t happen. Go find Paul. I’ll meet you two at the sewer entrance.”

 

* * *

 

“So can you tell me what we’re doing yet?”

“No.”

Behind him, Galia grumbles to herself. Daud just continues on, her footsteps following behind him.

Lizzy waves to him when he peers into the little canal that feeds into the water wheel. She stands on a grate on top of the stagnant water, with Paul leaning against the mossy wall. Lizzy’s smile drops off her face when Galia joins him at the edge.

“What’s  _ she  _ doing here?”

Daud stares at her neutrally. “You think you’re the only one who could bring a friend?”

“To what?” Galia turns her head. Below, Paul raises his hands.

“Fuck if I know, Fleet.”

Daud jumps down, bending his knees as he lands. A sharp pain up his side, but it’s gone in a few seconds. Galia lands next to him. She makes considerably more noise.

“Daud, are you a fucking idiot?” she hisses. “You’re hurt!”

“I’m not hurt anymore.”

“You were in a perpetual  _ coma  _ a week ago.”

“I was unconscious for one day, Galia, that’s not a coma.” Daud shakes his head and turns to the door. “Come on. We’ll tell you what’s up in here.”

“The sewers?” Paul whines, but he pushes himself away from the wall and follows.

Daud resists the urge to cover his nose when they enter the sewer. Stagnant, algae-filled water has a particular smell to it, both piercing and stale. And the scent of dead bodies, though that permeates all of Dunwall now. It will be worse come spring, when the results of Delilah’s incompetence thaw out and begin putrefying.

“Soooo, can you tell us why you brought us down here now?” Paul rocks on his feet as Lizzy locks the door up behind them. She pockets the key and turns to him, hands on her hips.

“So it’s easier to hide your bodies if you say no.”

“Very funny, Stride.” Galia crosses her arms. “Quit messing around, what’s going on here? Why have you two been so secretive?”

“I knew it!” Paul claps his hands. “You two are an item! I totally called it! Gerald owes me money now.” His shoulders relax, looking up at the ceiling. “Though if you brought us down her for a foursome, you picked probably the best place to kill the mood. I know, like, five other places that would be much more romantic.”

“Paul.” Lizzy blinks. “First of all, I would not fuck you in a sewer. I have a little more class than that. And me and Daud are just murder buddies. No dicking to be had.”

“Really? Darn.” Paul snaps his fingers. “I was already preparing my speech for your wedding.”

Lizzy makes a horrified face. “Even if I was with Daud, I wouldn’t  _ marry  _ him.”

“What’s wrong with Daud?” Galia asks, hand on her hip. Lizzy waves her off.

“It’s not Daud. I’m not wife material. Never getting married.”

“Can we…” Daud blows his breath out. “Can we please be serious for a moment?”

“Right.” Galia smoothes her shirt out, and even Paul stands up a bit straighter. “Sorry.”

Daud sighs. Then he raises his left hand, his eyes darting between the two. “What I’m about to show you two here is a secret. You are never to tell anyone about this.  _ Especially  _ Thomas.”

He knows that Thomas could, technically, order them to tell on Daud. Even when Daud’s Spymaster, where he’ll largely operate outside the law and out from under the eye of the Crown, he’ll still be at the mercy of the Emperor’s orders. But Thomas wouldn’t abuse his power like that.

Both Paul and Galia look uncomfortable when Daud mentions their future ruler, but nevertheless, they still nod. Daud can’t tell if he should be happy they’re so loyal to him, or worried they aren’t so loyal to Thomas.

Perhaps a bit of both.

Daud takes a deep breath to keep his hands from shaking. Then he unwinds the ribbon over his hand.

They lean forward on their tiptoes when the last of the fabric falls away. And when the Mark is bare to see, Paul merely blinks. Galia, on the other hand, wigs out.

“What the fuck!” She jumps back, spinning around on her toe. “What even  _ is  _ that? Daud, what the fuck happened to you?!”

“Huh.” Paul gives no other reaction, not even to Galia’s apparent meltdown. She continues to babble, sending fleeting, nervous glances towards the Mark. Refuses to step closer.

Lizzy cracks her neck. “You know, these sewers are supposed to be full of weepers. So you might want to keep it down, Fleet.”

Galia glares, but she does seem to calm down. She still won’t get any closer to Daud. “When the hell did this  _ happen,  _ Daud?” she hisses, in a much quieter voice.

Daud lets his hand drop. “The black-eyed bastard came to me in Coldridge. It’s how I was able to escape.”

“Bastard, huh?” Paul nods, his face still blank. “Shows your feelings towards the guy.”

Daud grits his teeth. “He’s not a  _ guy.  _ He’s a being of chaos. Don’t try to humanise Him.”

“And He gave you…” Galia leans over to catch about glimpse of it. “But why you?”

A strangled sound emits from Lizzy’s direction. “Why Daud? Why  _ wouldn’t  _ it be Daud?!”

Galia blinks, straightening up a bit. “It’s not like that, it’s just...there were people who could have used it earlier. Or, why let Daud sit in prison for six months?”

Daud never thought about that. The conspiracy planting the key and the bomb, that certainly helped, but he probably could have figured out a way to escape without them. With the Mark, he could have escaped earlier. Might not have had to sit in the cold, waiting for his execution.

Might not have had to endure the torture, might not have all the scars that he so carefully hides from Thomas. Might not have had to lay there, reliving the day, telling himself of all the things he could have done differently and hating himself and  _ missing  _ her.

No. That time made him. His suffering sculpted him into the killer he is now, his emotions a canister of whale oil, trapped and shaken until he’s ready to explode. Coldridge turned him into Thomas’s perfect weapon. That’s what he needs to be. Whatever he was before wasn’t good enough to save Billie. There’s no point in mourning the loss.

Galia approaches apprehensively, reaching her hand out. “Can I touch it?”

Daud complies. Galia runs her fingers over the black, then rubs them together as if trying to rub the ink off. But the Mark isn’t ink. It’s not a tattoo, not a burn. It’s part of his flesh, seamless and deep.

“Wicked…” Her green eyes are wide, wonder touching her features. 

It makes Daud uncomfortable. He pulls his hand back, and her eyes follow it for a moment until they snap back up to Daud’s, unblinking.

“Paul?” Daud turns, away from Galia’s piercing stare. “You’re being awfully quiet.”

Paul jerks upon hearing his name, but then he shakes his head. “I just...thinking. A lot of things make more sense now.” He turns to Lizzy. “So can you, like, draw on his power? He’s imprinted it on you, right?”

“Ugh, don’t say it like that,” Lizzy complains. “You make it sound so gross.”

“Lizzy and I have just been calling it the Bond,” Daud explains. “An Arcane Bond. She can use some of my powers and inherited my vitality.”

“But where does her magic come from?” Galia has grabbed his hand again, stroking the Mark. Her eyes don’t flicker, trained on the shapes like they’re her lifeline. Unblinking.

Lizzy opens her mouth, but then she pauses. “I dunno, maybe Daud is giving me, like a magic allowance?”

Daud has to stifle a laugh at that, but he shakes his head. “No, you have your own supply of mana. I have nothing to do with that.” He pulls his hand away from Galia again, a bit more forcefully this time, and steps away so she can’t grab at him again. “It’s my theory that everyone contains some sort of magical power. It’s more potent with some, like in witches.” He glances towards the Mark. “This just allows me, us, to...use it. Differently than others.”

Billie has philosophized on the subject a bit, and while Daud really doesn’t understand half of her bullshit, she seems to more or less agree with the idea.

_ ‘The Void is in everything,’  _ Billie whispers, as if trying to explain it to them herself.  _ ‘Within every mind, every heart. It lends great and terrible power without discrimination.’ _

It’s not the time for supernatural philosophy, though. Daud shakes his head and holds his Marked hand out to Galia. “Give me your hand.”

Galia extends hers without hesitance. Lizzy grabs Paul’s, watching Daud carefully to copy his movements. “Lemme see if we can pass it on like this…”

“You’re not even going to give us the choice?” Paul laughs uncomfortably. Lizzy looks up at him boredly.

“If you say no now, we do have to kill you. Sorry.”

“No, Lizzy, we don’t.” Daud sighs.

Galia practically vibrates with excitement as Daud allows the Mark to glow, as he turns their hands over and allows his energy to pour into her. She gasps slightly, feeling the magic tingle across her veins. 

_ ‘She is loyal to you, yes. Desperately so. There is something else...no. I can see no farther.’ _

Daud pulls away. The air is electric, and he can feel Galia’s energy pulling him one way, Lizzy’s another. Galia raises her hand and stares at it.

“You won’t have a Mark,” Daud says. “Doesn’t work like that.”

“Could probably draw one on,” Galia mutters. Daud raises an eyebrow, but she doesn’t elaborate on why she would want that-proof of the heresy they were committing, a death sentence if it were seen by the wrong person. The ugly reminder staining her skin.

“Yeah, I don’t think this is working.” Lizzy is still holding Paul’s hand, her other hand on her hip as she stares impatiently. “Think you’re gonna have to do it, Daud.”

Paul looks uneasy as Daud steps closer. Daud doesn’t smile, but he tries to lighten his resting bitch face. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt.” At this precise moment, Galia figures out how to activate Blink, and transports herself five feet over the side of the walkway. She lets out one guttural shriek before she falls into the murky, green water with a splash.

Daud’s feet turn automatically to check on her, as does Paul. Lizzy just laughs off to the side.

Galia surfaces a moment later and makes a face. “Ew.”

Paul starts to laugh. “Gotta love some corpse water, right?”

“I think I got some in my mouth!”

“Well, the Bond will keep you from getting sick.” Daud rolls his eyes. Galia dog-paddles to the side and pulls herself up, grimacing as she looks down at her grimy, soaked coat.

Paul is still laughing when Daud turns back to him. “As you can see, she’s not hurt,” he tries to joke, but Paul’s smile just drops off his face. Daud glances towards his feet. “If you don’t want to do this…”

“No, it’s fine.” Paul shakes his head.

“You don’t  _ have  _ to, Paul.” Daud huffs. “Nobody gave me a choice. But if you don’t want to accept, you have to promise on your life never to tell another soul.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Then Paul rolls his shoulders back, pastes a smile on his face and holds out his hand. “No, I accept. Let’s do this bitch.”

Well, that wasn’t really the term he’d use for it, but alright.

Daud places his hand in Paul’s. His face is nervous, but he looks Daud in the eye and nods. 

_ ‘He sees more than he is telling. The silent eyes and ears. He will keep the secrets that need kept.’ _

The energy transfer is much the same, in that it’s unbelievably weird and Daud is relieved when he can pull away. It doesn’t seem to... _ feel _ the same as other two, though, and Daud thinks it’s because Paul is male until he tries to Blink himself.

“Um…” He waves his hand, clenching and un-clenching his fingers. “How am I supposed to do this again…?”

“You just…” Lizzy huffs, fitting her fingers over his. “Like this! Just look and... _ do it.  _ I don’t know how to make it any easier.”

“Don’t be so hard on him, Lizzy.” Daud watches from a few paces away. “This is the first time I’ve done this with someone else. Not everyone is going to take to it like you.”

Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Well, if he can’t Blink, then what’s the point?” She kicks an empty bottle, letting it explode against the wall. “Come on. There’s some river krusts up ahead, they’ll make a good testing grounds.”

 

* * *

 

After maybe a half hour, Daud knows it. Paul can’t Blink.

He can’t tell why-he tries giving the Bond again, but all that did was give Daud a headache and make Paul feel slightly nauseous. He can perform Pull, however, though they discover that it’s rather useless against the river krusts.

The practice ends up being more for Galia, getting her used to transversals by antagonizing the river krusts then having her Blink in and stab them before they snap their carapaces closed. She gets grazed by their acid once and Daud pours some water over it, gives her a vial of red elixir. Galia downs half of it and watches, amazed, as the chemical burn practically heals before her eyes.

Paul then snatches the vial from her hand, rubbing a bit of the diluted acid on his finger and testing his own healing. Daud’s happy to see that his supernatural healing has been passed on intact. 

Neither of them can use Void Gaze, however. Just like Lizzy. Daud was somewhat hoping Paul could, to make up for his inability to Blink. Didn’t seem fair. Though he highly doubted the Outsider had fairness in mind when He granted Daud this power.

“One more exercise before we move on,” Daud grunts, picking up another empty bottle from the dozens that litter the ground. “Test your reflexes. You both have crossbows on you? I’m going to throw this and you’re going to hit it out of the air.”

“That sounds pretty impossible.” Galia puts her hands on her hips. Paul just shakes his head, muttering under his breath. He’s already loading his bow.

Daud rolls his eyes. “I know for a fact that you can aim.”

“I’m good with a blade, Daud, Rinaldo is the gunslinger.”

“This is just practice.” He tries to be gentle, but her sass is starting to grate on him. “I’ll slow down time, and you can-”

“You can what now?”

And that requires explanation, how yes, Daud can in fact slow down time itself. At least he think he is-the only explanation he comes up with is that his perception is just speeding up incredibly fast, but then, he moves and falls at the same rate. The same can be said for Lizzy. She can’t initiate it, but she feels the effects.

Though when Daud throws the bottle and performs the move, Paul hits it easily with a huge grin on his face. Galia, however, just frowns. “Again.”

Another throw. Another pull of his arm. Another score for Paul, who makes the bottle explode before Galia has even aimed her crossbow. The third time Paul stands back, but the bottle crashes against the ground.

“Let me try it one more time,” Galia says, staring at the broken glass. “It felt a little slower that time.”

Daud shakes his head, puts his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think it’s working for you.”

“No, it will!” She pulls away, her eyes wild. “I can do this!”

Off to the side, Lizzy rolls her eyes. “You might want to keep it down. I did find some witches down here earlier.”

“Witches?” Paul’s head whips to the side. “What kind of witches?!”

“Like, flowery ones? I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Paul’s shoulders relax, but his eyes don’t. “You said there were weepers down here.”

“I mean, there were.” Lizzy shrugs. “But the witches killed them before I got there.”

“I see some more krusts further ahead,” Daud interrupts, shutting off Void Gaze. “Let’s take those out, then we can go hunting.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice…” Lizzy mumbles, pushing away from the wall.

These krusts are weird, black and spotted with a glowing green. Their spit has dyed the opposite wall a sickly blue, similar to the hue of raw whale oil. It makes Daud grimace in disgust.

“Can’t wait to see the pearls in these babies.” Paul grins as he readies his knife. He already has at least a dozen pearls stashed away in his pockets, all light green and lavender. They wouldn’t fetch a great price. White pearls were prized, maybe tinged the lightest blue or pink. At least in Dunwall. You could make a killing selling black pearls up in Tyvia, apparently. But nobody would pay for green pearls.

Galia rocks on her feet, flipping her blade in her hand. Daud leans close to her. “Ready?”

“Is that a question?”

Daud pops out, lets the krusts sense him and open their mouths. Galia Blinks to the middle of the colony, swiping her blade across the spongy insides of one and inserting it into another a split second before it snaps closed. The third Paul gets with his crossbow, earning a sore look from Galia when she turns. “I could have done that.”

“Yeah. But I did.” Paul picks one of the dead krusts up, jams his knife into the outer shell and starts peeling it back. 

Galia huffs and ignores him. “So what are these witches doing down here? Do they know where we are?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out, blondie.” Lizzy smacks her lips. “They gotta die, though.”

“Well, obviously-”

“Yikes. Uh, have you guys ever seen pearls this color?”

Paul holds it up to the light and Daud has to resist snatching it from his fingers on impulse. The pearl is irregularly shaped, sunken on one side. A purple so dark it almost looks red. Daud half expects the color to bleed onto Paul’s hands.

“That’s actually really fucking weird.” Lizzy takes the pearl and teeths it experimentally. “It’s real.”

“Well, yeah, I  _ just _ pulled it out.”

“Might want to throw that one back,” Lizzy says, tossing the pearl into Paul’s hands. “Red pearls are bad luck.”

“I’ve never heard that before.” Paul shakes his head, tucking the pearl into his pocket. “I’m keeping these. Make myself a damn necklace. I deserve some nice jewelry.”

“You want some of mine? I have more pearls than I know what to do with.”

“You don’t seem like the pearl type, Stride.” Galia says cattily. “Are there even any witches down here? I haven’t seen anyone.”

“That’s because I fed their bodies to the rats,” Lizzy says, waving her hand. “I heard them talk about others patrolling. That’s when I went to get Daud.”

“And us. I’m so flattered.” Paul cuts into another river krust. “Hey, so aren’t we witches now? Since we’re using magic and shit?”

“No,” Daud grunts, even though he’s not really sure what the criteria is.

Lizzy shrugs. “I mean, I guess? But don’t expect me to go dancing naked in the moonlight. Actually, scratch that. That sounds fun. Might do it when it’s warmer, though.”

“I think witches are supposed to use bonecharms and stuff.” Galia kicks some garbage. “Though that would make literally everyone in Dunwall a witch.”

Paul shakes his head and gets to his feet, pocketing two equally red and creepy pearls and differing sizes. “We can be whatever kind of witches we want. Delilah doesn’t own the word!”

“Delilah’s coven isn’t the only one in Dunwall.” Daud crosses his arms, glaring coldly. “Witches murdered the Empress.”

“Well, they don’t own the concept.” Paul waves his hand. “We’ll form our own coven. Take back the witchery!”

“I don’t think that’s a word…” Daud sighs, but he turns away before he can say anything. They’re just being kids, having fun. Daud knows he shouldn’t be so quick to rain on their parade. But the thought of being lumped in with Delilah, with the woman who…

He isn’t like them.

“So what’s our theme going to be?” Daud hears Lizzy ask the others as he peers past the walls with Void Gaze. “You know, how one’s got flowers, the other’s about birds?”

“Shame birds are taken.” Galia says. “Well, they covered land and sky, so should we be something from the sea?”

“That’d be cool. But my old gang was called the Dead Eels, so we’ll never top that name.”

Nothing in this direction. Daud can see a corpse further down this tunnel, but the way is barred off. They’d have to find another way around, if they wanted in.

“No, girls, they left us the coolest one! We should be dogs!”

“Ugh, like Overseer pets?” He can practically  _ hear  _ Lizzy’s sour face.

“What’s wrong with dogs, Stride?” Daud has to agree with Galia. He likes dogs. “Hounds are loyal and strong. And fluffy!”

“That’s right, Fleets! Now lemme hear you howl! AWOO!”

“Paul!”

“Stop with the yelling!”

“Okay, it’s not yelling, it’s howling, and it’s basically how dogs sing.”

Daud leaves the group to their bickering, scouting out the area with Void Gaze. He’s not going far-he just wants a good idea of where they are before they set off. He passes a corpse half-devoured by rats-can see flecks of petals on the ground, so this must be where Lizzy killed those witches. Only one body, though. The other must have fallen into the water, or the rats may have chewed the bones to bits. 

He Blinks to avoid the rat swarm, ducking into a doorway off to the side. He senses something odd the moment he walks through the door. The hallway is narrow, long and winding, but it’s lit. The sewers are largely unpowered now-not enough whale oil, no need to when all the maintenance workers are either dead or relegated to more important jobs. The only light came from shafts and grates that let in natural light, or the occasional emergency light that was connected to a different power grid. 

These lights are too bright to be back-ups. Spaced evenly in the floorboards, filling Daud’s eyes with their cool glow. He follows the hallway, almost hypnotically, and stops when he reaches another doorway. He stares, blinking at the room ahead, the large, blue-tinged cistern that seems too oddly familiar for comfort. He’s trying to remember where he’s seen it before when he hears the woman’s voice.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

Daud is frozen. There’s no way. It was just a dream, and he knows his dreams have been weird lately, but they haven’t been  _ prophetic… _

“Can someone help me?”

Swallowing the bile that rises up in his throat, Daud turns and flees back down the hallway.

Was it the same woman? It has to be, but how? He would think it was Billie, influencing his dreams again, but how would she know? Billie knows so many things, but she can’t see the future. Daud’s listened to her long enough to know that.

Exiting back out of the hallway, Daud veers off to the side and presses his back to the wall. He needs to return to the group, he knows. Tell them about his dream? They’ll think him insane. Though he did just hand out magical powers like candy, so they’ll probably believe any number of impossible things now.

He rests his head against the bars that block off further passage down the sewer line and watches the rats, still nibbling on the witch’s body. They’re slow, almost sleepy. Their stomachs are full and they’ll stop to rest soon. They won’t bother Daud, at least.

Billie had told him that rats were smart. They seemed pretty basic to him-swarmed wherever there was food, ate until the point of lethargy, leaving them vulnerable. But Billie was smarter than he ever was, would have known better than him anyway.

He hears the kids, trying to come up for a name for their gang and joking about Daud’s manner of walking, somewhere up the sewer line. Their voices are faint, and he should scold them when he returns for being so loud. But it’s something, so he listens and thinks, tries to ground himself. If it weren’t for the plague, he’d suggest something rat-related, in memory of Billie’s favoritism. But even he can tell that would be in poor taste. He likes Paul’s idea-dogs would be perfect. Billie had always begged him to adopt one-he couldn’t afford a dog when he could barely feed Billie and Thomas, so he always said no to her, but when a stray started following her around one day he didn’t have the heart to tell her to get rid of it. It only lasted about two days before an Overseer hit her in the face with the hilt of his sword and took the dog from her.

His heart rate is starting to stabilize now. Daud closes his eyes, breathes out. He had tried to get the Emperor to sign off on a dog for her, in Dunwall Tower, sold it as a guard dog. Unfortunately, the Emperor was horribly allergic. He should have gotten a guard dog for her later on. Maybe he should get one for Thomas, just so they can both sleep better at night.

“...auditioning for the Golden Cat…”

A cat would be nice, too. Thomas has always been a cat person. Maybe he’d get...both…

Those aren’t the girls talking. Not  _ his  _ girls.

Daud strains for the snippets of conversation, whispers uttered somewhere beyond these bars. He can’t see them, even through Void Gaze, but he hears like a bat now.

“Ugh, that fool!” The voice is more distinct now, listening for it. “She caught that stray Hatter easy enough, but not everyone will be fooled by a pretty face and a few tears! What if  _ she  _ comes this way?!”

Crackled, shrill. Accent clearly upper-crust Dunwall. He couldn’t hear the other one very clearly, but she almost sounded like-

“Then so much for our little sister.”

His lungs go still. His throat is paralyzed, unable to breathe in or push air out. His arm muscles lock up, his shoulders rigid, and he feels as if his knees will give out if there’s even the slightest bit more pressure on them.

It was her.  _ One  _ of her. One that wore a mask and giggled and taunted, who told him all the grisly details of Billie’s corpse being dredged up from the water and reminded him what a horrible Protector he was, who did it while hurting him and laughing at his pain.

Daud stumbles backwards. His hands grasp at the wall, trying to find some sort of lifeline. They skim down the slicked bricks and Daud has to scramble to keep his footing, because his legs can’t hold up his weight anymore.

He can’t move because she took a knife to the bottom of his feet, cut them to ribbons and made him walk on salt. He can’t breathe because she held his head under the water and didn’t let him up until black spots covered his vision. She did it all while cackling, because it was  _ funny  _ to her, that she could hurt Daud and that his Billie was dead and that there was nothing he could do about any of it.

There’s no air. Just pain, red hot and twisting, and Daud allows it to envelope his being and burn him alive. He can’t think like this. Can’t feel sorrow or longing, can’t regret or worry. There’s only pain. There’s no room to feel anything else.

Faces swim in front of his eyes, and Daud would bat them away if he could unlock his hands from his side. They’re probably chained up anyway, he can’t remember the last time he hasn’t been restrained in some manner, like he’s ever fought back, like he’s ever resisted what he knew he deserved.

They want him to talk, but he knows he won’t. He will never open his mouth again. He is as silent as his Empress, entombed in her early grave, and he feels like every breath he takes was stolen right from her flooded lungs. No, he won’t give them what they want, but he’ll take their punishment. He’ll take everything they have for him.

The whips across his back, knives and hot irons at his flesh. Pliers in his mouth, the taste of metal and blood. The guards hauling him out of his cell during yard time to let the other prisoners beat him. The guards beating him themselves, spitting on him, saying all kinds of vile things. Then back to the witches, and they’ll touch him and hurt him and make him pay for it, back to the pain and mouths and fingers and blood and cold-

“Daud!”

A biting pain at his cheek. A hand pressed against his mouth, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh again, but he feels nothing.

“Ow, Stride!”

“Don’t hit him!” Lizzy hisses. “You’re not supposed to hit them!”

“Well, did you have a better fucking plan?!”

Paul in front of him, one hand gripping Daud’s shoulder. He removes the other from Daud’s mouth. “It’s us, Daud. Please don’t try to bite me again.”

Lizzy steps to his side, taking hold of Daud’s other shoulder. “Let’s sit down, big guy, you’re not looking too hot.”

Daud slides down the wall until his butt hits the ground, his legs stiff and his heels scraping against the floor because he can’t remember how to bend his knees. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Galia’s face appears above Lizzy’s head, curious and annoyed.

Lizzy snaps her head around. “There’s nothing fucking  _ wrong  _ with him, Fleet, fuck off!”

“Daud.” Paul rests his hand at Daud’s jaw, his eyes boring into his. “Daud, what happened? What’s wrong?”

He must be able to babble something slightly coherent, because they send Galia twenty feet away to the bars to listen. Lizzy helps him crawl to the side of the walkway and pats his back half-heartedly as he vomits into the sewage.

“There’s definitely women over there,” Galia whispers as she returns. “But you’re sure they’re witches? Daud, we can take a few witches.”

He can feel his undershirt sticking to him, cold sweat breaking out across his back. Daud shivers. Lizzy wordlessly hands him a piece of candy wrapped in pink paper.

“Witches tortured him in Coldridge, Galileo.”

“Yeah, but that was like...a month ago.”

Daud finally gets his numb, shaking fingers to comply long enough to unwrap the candy and pop it in his mouth. Butterscotch. He fucking hates butterscotch. He sticks it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth and sucks hard.

Lizzy is giving Galia murder eyes. “Okay, give me your hand. I’ll rip out all your fingernails and we’ll see how you feel about me in a month.”

“Stride. Fleet. This isn’t helping.”

It’s really not. Every word is like driving a nail into the back of his skull.

“Ugh.” Lizzy scoffs, but then she looks to him, her regular facade melting away. “You want us to take you back, Daud? The three of us can take care of these ladies.”

No. Fuck, no. He’s not leaving them down here. Why the hell did he bring them down here at all? He shouldn’t have given Paul and Galia the Bond. He should have followed Lizzy down her immediately, killed the witches himself.

If those witches get their gnarled, filthy hands on any of them, Daud will never forgive himself.

“No.”

Daud tries to get up, but Paul has to grab him to keep him from toppling over into the water. He stumbles back, hands up when all three reach out to steady him. “I’m fine.”

“Daud, you look like my old man in the five minutes before he croaked.”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, rubbing his closed eyelids with his thumb and pointer finger. “Or I will be. Just give me a minute.”

“And then what?” Galia huffs.

“Then we’re going to put your powers to real use.”

The girls exchange glances. Off to the side, there’s the sound of a match being struck.

“Here, Daud. Just breathe in deep.”

Paul shoves a pipe into his hands, its substance already smoking. Daud wrinkles his nose.

“Do I want to know what this is?”

“Nope.”

Daud puts the pipe to his lips and breathes deeply. At least he doesn’t start coughing, though he can probably thank thirty years worth of smoker’s lungs for that. He gets in three hits before Paul takes the pipe away from him.

“Give that a few minutes…” Paul says as he takes a puff himself. “Should help.”

“Would some booze help?” Lizzy shakes the flask he knows she always keeps on her hip. Paul playfully swats at her hand.

“This is baby’s first drug session, Stride, let’s not overwhelm him.”

“I’ve done harder shit in my life,” Daud says, though it’s been decades and he didn’t really agree to it at the time. 

Paul laughs and claps him on the back. “See, he’s feeling better already.”

It’s another minute or so before it kicks in, but Daud can feel the tension in his muscles drop, can take a real breath finally. He realizes how hard he’s been gritting his teeth.

“They’ll be planning an ambush,” he says, his tongue feeling rather odd as he speaks. “There will be a woman in the cistern, pretending she’s hurt.”

“Who would fall for that?” Lizzy rolls her eyes. Daud neglects to comment, instead pulling out his sword and walking ahead.

“We won’t be. Come on. We have some weed extermination to do.”

  
  


“She’s going to run her voice hoarse by the end of the day…”

Daud can see the witches through Void Gaze, poised at the side of the stairs. Swords in their hands, flowers sprouting from their bodies.

_ Her  _ voice still makes his stomach churn. But he swallows it down. Thumbs the edge of his sword, presses down ever so slightly until he feels that twinge of pain. Then he’s alright, for the moment.

“Is someone actually coming this time, or is it another false alarm?!”

“Patience, sister. It’s only a matter of time before they’re caught in our web.”

_ ‘There is magic at work here. Potent and familiar, and exceedingly hostile. You are in danger.’  _ Billie’s voice is gentle, concerned. It feels out of place.

He turns to the girls, crouched next to him besides the iron storm door that separates the cistern from the sewer line. “I trust you two can take them alive.”

Galia’s scarf is pulled up over her mouth and Lizzy has her mask on, but they both nod in agreement.

“Good. You have three minutes.”

Daud begins to crank the wheel that lowers the door. He can hear one of the witches hush the other, whisper that someone is coming. As soon as there’s enough space for them to clear the space, Daud pulls his arm down to Slow Time, allowing Galia and Lizzy to Blink through to the other side.

Then Daud Blinks up to the platform where the other witch is caterwauling. Paul is already ascending the steps, exactly as planned. The witch reaches her bony, green arm out towards him.

“I think I can walk...if you just help me up…”

Paul stares at her impassively. He hides his pistol well, clutched in his hand behind his back, just in case this goes south. Daud steps to the side, just out of the witch’s field of vision, his footsteps light and silent. She doesn’t even notice him until he reaches over and grabs her wrist, pulls to expose the milky underside of her arm, tossing his sword up and flipping it around, aiming it down.

“Clever.”

He plunges his blade down between the two bones of her forearm. She screams, for real this time. Daud feels nothing.

The witch’s eyes are full of confusion, panning up until they reach his face. Her mouth drops, snaps closed, and her eyes narrow. “Daud! I...I  _ almost  _ had you.”

Off to the side, Paul scoffs. “No, you didn’t.” He flicks ash from whatever it is he’s smoking over the side of the railing. “You didn’t even come close.”

“Tell me why you’re down here.” Daud hears himself say. “What are you looking for?”

The witch smiles at him, though he can tell it takes effort. “Why? Is there something worth looking for nearby?”

Daud twists the blade, bringing with it a sick, meaty sound as one of her bones snap. Paul continues to stare and smoke, nonplussed.

“Tell me what your orders are and I’ll make it fast.”

“Why do you care?” she shouts, her face twisted in pain. “You won’t live to see us win. Lady Delilah will hunt you down like the dog you are.”

“That’s enough.” Daud brings the hilt in on her chest, effectively knocking her unconscious. He puts a boot over her chest, just in case she comes to before bleeding out.

As scheduled, Galia and Lizzy Blink in, forcing two witches to their knees in front of them. Galia’s witch is tied nicely, her hands behind her back with a tear in her shirt and her hat missing. Lizzy’s no longer has two hands in which to tie together, but she’s wrapped a cord around the witch’s upper body, trapping her elbows to her sides.

“My bad,” Lizzy says, tossing a still-bleeding hand onto the floor. “Fleet was being a dickhead, had to save her incompetent ass.”

“I would have been fine!” Galia squawks.

The witches both gasp as the same time, upon seeing Daud standing there. Lizzy’s one-handed witch opens and closes her mouth a few times, like a fish. “You...you’re…”

“Daud.”

“Daud!”

Daud rolls his eyes. She’s the one with the scratchy voice. Not  _ her. _

On the floor, the red-headed witch groans. Daud kicks her head to knock her out again.

The scratchy-voiced witch sputters. “But, but you’re dead! She told us so!”

“She also told us to keep an eye out for him because no one’s found his body yet, idiot!”

She has shoulder-length brown hair that parts in the middle, and large brown eyes with thick, full lashes. If Daud had seen her somewhere else, he would think she was pretty. The thought makes him want to puke again.

Without word, Daud steps forward and sends his boot into her stomach.

The witch doubles over, trying to regain her breath. Daud straightens himself up again. “You and I have plans.”

“Do...we…” she coughs.

Daud turns and looks down at the unconscious, red-haired witch, toeing the flowers growing from her shoulders. “You’re going to tell us why you’re down here.”

“Really?” The dirty-blonde witch with the shrill voice says. “And what if we don’t want to tell you?”

Paul picks up their unconscious sister and heaves her over the railing. She splashes, and Daud leans over just far enough to see her floating face-down in the water.

“You’re going to die today,” Daud says, turning back. “But if you tell us what we want to know, I’ll kill you fast. Painlessly, even, if you’re quick about it.”

The dark-haired witch laughs. “You think my sister and I are so easily swayed?”

Can’t say for her sister, Daud thinks, as the other witch is growing rather pale. Though she did just have her hand cut off, so that might just be blood loss.

Lizzy steps closer and smacks her upside the head. “That offer only extends to your  _ sister.  _ You owe Daud some quality time.”

The blonde witch looks nervous, but when Daud approaches her she puts on an angry face and spits at his feet. “You’re a bastard, Daud! We should have killed you and fed your body to our hounds!” 

“Charming.” Daud keeps his face neutral.

His refusal to engage only seems to enrage her further. “You’re worthless, just like that filthy whore you called an Empress, and Delilah will see to it you both share the same sewer grave! I-”

Daud thrusts the blade through her gut and extracts it in one smooth motion. The witch gasps a few times, the air whistling through the hole in her lung, before she pitches forward. Her cheek meets the bloody floor with a smack.

Paul steps forward and collects the body, tossing it over the edge with the other. Their sister stares, eyes wide and disbelieving but also angry, in a way.

“You won’t get anything out of me,” she says in her gravelly voice. 

“That’s fair.” Daud steps forward. “You can tell me as much as I told you. But then I get to take your role.”

“I wasn’t the only one, you know!” The witch speaks quickly, her neck pivoting around to look at his accomplices as Daud tosses her in the middle of the platform, puts his boot on her stomach to keep her from moving. “A dozen of us volunteered! That’s what we do, we protect our fellow women, and you forced yourself on the Empress!”

“Ew.” Galia’s sourness is apparent from even here. “And you believed that?”

Lizzy sidles up next to him. “You were protecting her...from her Protector? And then you killed her? Shit’s not adding up, sweetheart.”

The witch shakes her head. “You don’t understand! Men like him take whatever they want! It’s up to us to-”

“Bitch, Daud is  _ not  _ one of those men. Your mistress is the grubby one.”

“Don’t you have, like, men in your coven?” Galia asks from behind. “Why are  _ they _ different?”

“They’re probably all fags.”

“Paul!”

“What? I am one, so I can say it!”

“You’re all traitors!” the witch yells.

Daud kicks her ribs, listens as all the air rushes out of her lungs.

“I’d save your breath. You have few of them left.”

The witch wheezes, but soon her features knit in anger, and she rests her head against the floor as she glares up at him. “Then go ahead, Daud. You don’t exactly have an artist’s arsenal at your disposal, but let’s see how you top my work.”

“I think you’ll find I’m rather resourceful.”

Daud grips his sword, wondering where to start. He can’t remember all of what acts were  _ hers  _ and what belonged to other witches, but he remembers enough. And here, he doesn’t need to leave a living victim. 

He wants to cut the skin off her eyelids. Let her bake in the sun, lay pieces of metal on her sensitive flesh and let it heat to the point of pain. He wants to see her struggle for breath, bubbles from her lips and to feel her fight against him as she tries to raise her head. He wants to violate her, make her feel as violated as she made him feel, show her that she has no control. It’s all his now.

He’s earned this. He put up with them for six months, six goddamn months of taking everything they had without uttering a single word. He deserves to be on the other side for once. Just this once. He deserves to...to be like her.

He hadn’t said a word in Coldridge Prison. They knew he wouldn’t. They kept hurting him because they liked it, got some sick sort of enjoyment out of his pain and grief. He knew he deserved it, but he still hated them with an intensity he didn’t think possible.

She’s not going to say one word more. She’s not going to give away Delilah’s secrets. He’s going to hurt her because he wants to.

When they wore masks, Daud knew there were girls under there, but he always imagined them with the faces of monsters. Her pretty face can’t fool him, but it did throw him for a moment. How normal she looks.

Daud knows he’s a monster. He sees it whenever he looks at his hands, whenever he sees his face in the mirror. He knows it by the way Thomas sometimes looks at him in that strange mixture of pity and apprehension, because Daud’s always been a horrible person but Thomas does not recognize the wickedness he has become. Out of necessity. For him.

Daud’s a monster, yes.

But he’s not this kind of monster.

He pulls her up to her knees, gripping the back of her head. He lets the knife clatter to the floor, seizing her chin. Then he twists.

The snap makes Lizzy visibly shudder.

Daud lets the witch fall back down, her neck an impossible angle, her eyes glassy and unblinking.

“Well...I…”

Lizzy takes her mask off, looking down at the dead witch in confusion. She blinks. Rounds herself up. Turns to Paul and Galia, both standing there frozen, Paul’s pipe halfway to his lips.

“Go do a quick sweep. Let me talk to Daud for a sec.”

Galia Blinks away. Paul looks slightly confused by her absence for a moment before shaking his head and walking off the platform.

Lizzy turns back to him, wrapping her arms around her midsection. “You...want to tell me what that was all about, tough guy?”

“She wasn’t going to give us any information.”

“Yeah, but…” Lizzy looks down and kicks the witch’s hand. “She deserved it.”

She did. Probably deserved a lot worse than what Daud was about to give her. 

“We’re not the judge and jury, Lizzy,” he tells her. “We’re just the executioner bit.”

“Yeah, but you can have your fun with it.” She shrugs.

Daud blows air out through his nose. “This business isn’t about ‘fun’.”

“I just meant-”

“At what point would you stop killing because they deserved it,” he says slowly. “And just killed because you enjoyed it?”

Lizzy doesn’t say anything. Daud steps past her, reaches back to put a hand on her shoulder.

“She tortured you, Daud,” she mumbles.

“She’s dead,” he says. “She can’t hurt anyone now.”

And no matter how much he wishes it, hurting her wouldn’t have made him hurt any less.

Footsteps on the stairs. Paul makes a face as he jabs his thumb off to the side.

“So, um.” His eyebrows twitch up, uncomfortably. “We found something. You might want to see this.”

 

* * *

 

“Ugh, they somehow mader her even uglier...” Lizzy mumbles as she takes her turn looking through the keyhole. Daud is leaning against the wall, rubbing his eyeballs again.

Another fucking Delilah statue. Almost certainly one she can possess, like the one at Timsh’s.

Did the witches just cart them everywhere? They were life-sized statues, hewn from marble or plaster or whatever the fuck things were sculpted with. It would probably take him and Lizzy both to lift one, and they were strong even before the Bond. He can’t imagine how many witches must be needed to carry them. But here it is, set up in its own little shrine with flowers at its feet.

Gross.

“Can I fuck with her again?” Lizzy turns and practically bats her eyelashes.  _ “Please,  _ Daud?”

“That was a dumb idea even at Timsh’s.”

“But it was funny!”

It really hadn’t been.

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea…” Paul looks rather worried. It’s not an expression Daud’s used to seeing on him.

Galia huffs. She’s annoyed at because she hadn’t been the one to find the room and the shrine. Daud thinks the bonecharm she found is a more attractive find, but perhaps that’s just him. He’s just glad she found it before he could register the buzzing in his ears.

“Well, we can’t  _ leave  _ it here, so close to base,” she says. “We’ll need to go in to destroy it.”

“Yeah. And I can tell her what a rotten slut she is!”

“I’m not  _ saying  _ that.” Paul glares at the space above their heads for a moment. “I’m saying that we could be giving away our position.”

“Paulie, that’s dumb-”

“Think about it. They post witches in the Draper’s Ward sewers, and next day they’re all dead? We might as well take out a billboard.”

“Well, we already killed them, so…”

“We’ll have to provide some misdirection,” Daud says, watching the lights play off the ceiling. “Don’t suppose any of you have a map of the sewer grid?”

“I have a map of Dunwall.” Galia produces the paper from her pocket. Lizzy and Paul both give her odd looks, and she wrinkles her nose at them. “What? I like being prepared.”

“Give that to me.” Daud holds out his hand. Sewer lines usually ran directly under the streets-it wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

“Hey!” Galia protests as Daud presses am algae-soaked thumb to the approximate area of Draper’s Ward they’re under. He rolls his eyes.

“When this is all over, Galia, I promise I will buy you a hundred new maps.”

“It’s fine. I’m just giving you shit.”

“So what exactly are we doing?” Lizzy leans over, her hair hanging past her ear. “We moving some bodies, make it look like they died somewhere else?”

“No.” Daud rolls up the map and tries to tuck it into his coat, only to remember that he’s wearing Edgar’s and doesn’t have all his pockets. He hands it off to Galia. “We’re going to go take out some of the other witches patrolling down here. We could have started from anywhere.”

“Neat.” Paul cocks his head. “But we need more witches for that.”

“There are plenty down here.”

That’s what he’s gathered from Billie’s whispers about obsession and corrupted magic. She knows where the witches are. He’d let her lead him directly to them, but Billie’s directions wouldn’t be of much help down here. Billie didn’t seem to retain concepts like walls or understand that Daud is bound to the laws of gravity, for the most part. He was best following the general direction she tugged him in, then finding his own path and letting her decide if it’s the right one.

Lizzy turns to glare once more at the door. “But I can rub it in her face afterwards, right?”

“Maybe. If you behave.”

“Music to my ears.” She slides the mask back on and all is well.

Thankfully, none of them question the direction Daud leads them-they might excuse his general weirdness because he’s the one with the magic, but Daud highly doubts they’ll take ‘following the disembodied voice of the dead, psychic Empress’ as a respectable answer. Lizzy whispers that they’re coming up on the old water control station, and Daud Blinks ahead in order to survey the room with Void Gaze. Sure enough, there are two women wearing flowers wandering about. A room large enough to echo, machinery twice his height gone oddly quiet. Above, steel beams running under the ceiling, with just enough space for a human to balance.

Daud Blinks back to the group. “There’s two in there. I have a plan, but we’ll need to get high.” He stares at Paul. “Not your kind of high.”

Paul blows a strand of hair out of his face. “Oh, I get it. Pick on the guy who can’t jump.”

“This is going to take a while. Why don’t you double back and let everyone know we won’t be back for lunch?”

“Ugh, seriously?” Lizzy moans. “Gerald’s making fried hagfish.”

Daud eyeballs her. “Lizzy, you hate hagfish.”

“Yeah, but...” she mumbles. “I like food.”

“You’re really making me be the errand boy.” Paul rolls his eyes. “Fiiiine. I’ll tell them we’re training, or something.”

“We’ll meet you back here,” Daud tells him as he walks away, shooting them the finger behind his back.

Daud positions himself on top of the beams, creeping steadily closer to the witches at the pump. Lizzy takes up the left corner, watching the room in case there are more. Galia, still not entirely comfortable with Blinking around thirty feet in the air, (which he gets) is crouched on an elevated walkway, half-hidden by a wall. She peers from behind the bricks, casting nervous glances up at Daud above.

If they can get the women separated, that would be best. Restrain them both for questioning. But currently they’re sticking together like burrs, standing close and always looking at each other. Daud doesn’t even have his sleep darts, which makes things infinitely more difficult.

“I think Delilah wants us out of the way,” he hears one white-haired witch say.

Her brown-haired friend shakes her head. Daud hunches down to listen. “Why would you say such terrible things?”

“Think about it. She’s threatened by us.” The witch holds up her fishnet-gloved hand and pans to the room. “Why else would she put us here? She knows birds will never fly underground.”

“She’s not the only one we’ve been sent to find.”

Daud is practically planking on the beam in an effort to get closer. The room swallows up sound more efficiently than he would like. He has to concentrate to hear.

“You think we’ll be able to take that accursed Crown Killer, should she show her face?”

“Lady Delilah must have reason to believe in us!”

“Oh, sister.” The white-haired witch tuts and turns away. “Do you let her do all your thinking?”

“I have no reason to doubt my Lady,” the other witch says, her chin in the air. But after a moment she lowers it, looks to the ground. “I don’t understand why she can’t let one of us marry the heir. I understand that the girl was the simple choice, but now that she’s escaped-”

“Delilah isn’t looking for simple, love, she’s looking for  _ malleable.” _

Were they...talking about Thomas? He would think so, except he can’t think of a reason why Delilah would want to marry him to anyone but herself.

“I don’t believe you.” The witch crosses her arms and pouts. “We’ll just have to bring back the Crown Killer’s head ourselves. Then Delilah will see what a wonderful  _ Princesse  _ I’ll make.”

She pronounces the  _ e  _ part at the very end, even though you weren’t supposed to and nobody spells it that way anymore. Daud thinks that spelling is on some of Billie’s old documents, but they were the ultra-formal ones, with archaic wording and fancy calligraphy that might as well be a different language.

But then the witch Blinks away, and Daud searches around wildly to see where she might have gone. He spots her on the walkway about to turn the corner, right into where Galia is hiding.

Daud doesn’t think about it. The witch startles back when she sees Galia, draws her sword. Daud lets his own blade pierce the back of her neck as he falls, out through her throat and leaving only confused, choking death in its wake.

He shoulders the body before it even has time to fall. He grimaces at Galia, who just shrugs.

“Hey, one down, right?” she whispers.

One less to interrogate.

Daud carries the body back up to the beams, unsure of what to do with it. Couldn’t exactly leave it for her friend to find. 

_ ‘She left behind four young brothers. Missed them fiercely. They thought she ran away to marry a sweetheart, and now they will never know the difference.’ _

Lizzy Blinks next to him and motions to the corpse.

“I got an idea for that.”

“Oh?” Daud raises an eyebrow, glancing down at the remaining witch to ensure she hadn’t heard the echoes. “What’s that?”

Lizzy produces something round and glowing yellow from her pocket. “Like it? It’s a stun mine. I picked up a few at the slaughterhouse.”

“We’ll talk about your inability to share later. Put it on her.”

Lizzy hits a button, the mine turning from yellow to blue. It also starts beeping, which makes Daud think of the timer on the bomb at Coldridge, and he’s all too happy to shove the body off once Lizzy sticks the mine to the witch’s back.

The white-haired witch gasps as she sees her friend drop with a bloody smack to the floor, and she runs over with her blade drawn. Only for the mine to activate and shock her unconscious.

“Interesting.” Daud taps his lip. “How long will they stay like that?”

“Guess we’ll find out. Come on, better get her nice and secure before that happens.”

Daud examines the spent mine casing while Lizzy ties the witch to the railing with some rubber bullshit that looked like a hose. It looks like a Sokolov invention-but Daud has never seen it before. Possibly created in the two months between his departure and Sokolov’s apparent death, but that would leave an extraordinarily short testing period for Billie to authorize mass-producing the contraption. Delilah would have allowed it, but Sokolov wasn’t around to make it by then. Unless someone used his blueprints. Or if Delilah knew where Sokolov was.

“Daud?”

He shoves the dead mine into his coat. “Coming.”

Lizzy has the witch restrained nicely, her arms stretched out to the side and lashed to the poles. Her head droops onto her chest, but she’s still breathing.

Galia approaches with a piece of paper in her hand, a disgusted look on her face.

“What you got there, Gails?” Lizzy leans over the railing, tilting her head obnoxiously.

Galia thrusts the paper at Daud, practically shoving it up his nose. “Read this. Think we’ll get more answers from it than her.”

Daud has to find a good patch of natural light to read it by, but he recognizes Delilah Kaldwin’s loopy, ridiculously fancy handwriting.

 

_ Darlings- _

_ Take to the sewers. The only reason our enemies have evaded us thus far must be because they are utilizing the tunnels, coupling themselves with the filth they think us too good to search. They are wrong. Scour the northeast. That’s where much of the graffiti is popping up, and dear Hydrangea mentioned the scent of magic permeating the sector. I want the Crown Killer and the heir brought to me alive. You may do as you please with whatever allies she’s aligned herself with. _

_ And when you see that deceitful crow, I want you to bring me her heart in a box! If you find the rat, contain him in any manner to your liking until you have the girl as well. He won’t move against us if his daughter is threatened, so there’s no need to worry about my safety. I want him intact, and the girl unharmed. _

_ Oh, and keep a lookout for Daud. He couldn’t have crossed the river, but it’s likely he managed to move north before succumbing. The state of the corpse is unimportant. Whoever finds him may take a finger as a trophy, but I need his heart and his spleen, preferably the head if it is recognizable. This isn’t an invitation to drag him to Dunwall Tower in pieces. Bring me his body as intact as you found it. _

_ That’s five targets and thirty of you. I don’t think it a tall order. _

_ Those who succeed will earn my undying graces. _

_ Your Empress Forever, _

_ Delilah _

 

Empress.

She called herself Empress.

Daud sets the paper off to the side before he does something like set it on fire through sheer force of his glare. His hands shake.

In what world would she…

“You look like you sucked a lemon, Daud,” Lizzy remarks. “What the fuck does that say?”

“Ugh, Kaldwin talking about cutting Daud up and what body parts she wants.” Galia shakes her hair out of her ponytail.

Lizzy actually laughs. “Should be flattered. I told Edgar that when I die, I want him to have me stuffed like one of those taxidermied bears and put me in the corner of his living room or wherever. So I can continue freaking out all his one night stands.”

Daud makes a face. “That’s disgusting, Lizzy.”

“Or just hilarious. Don’t worry Daud, when you die I’ll prop you up in the courtroom so you can continue glaring at everyone.”

“Delilah is calling herself Empress now,” Daud derails. “She’s delusional, or...or something.”

Lizzy snatches the paper and reads in herself. Galia wanders back into view, fixing another ponytail. “She’s never going to be Empress, Daud.”

“Won’t she?” Lizzy mutters, still pouring over the page. “If she marries your boy, she will be.”

“No, it doesn’t work like that.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve worked for the Crown for five years. I know how this stuff works.”

“No.” Daud shakes his head. “She’d be Princess Consort. That’s the title for the wife of the Emperor...or Empress. They don’t inherently have power unless the ruling monarch gives them another title.”

There hadn’t been a spouse of the Empire’s ruler since before Daud was born. Billie’s father never married, and her grandmother died in childbirth, so there was no previous example they could draw from. He thinks it’s the same deal with Serkonos’s rulers-Duchess Abele has little power politically, but she has her own projects and is pretty much allowed to do as she pleases. The King and Queen of Morley are given de facto equal power, regardless of which party was the original heir, and they didn’t do royalty in Tyvia anymore. He gets why they’d be confused on the rules.

“Yeah.” Lizzy nods. “But what if Thomas died?”

“Excuse me?”

“In theory. If Thomas became Emperor, married Delilah and then died, what then?”

“I don’t think it matters, unless they had a kid?” Galia looks to Daud, unsure. Daud shakes his head.

“She could continue to rule, but only as Regent until the heir could take power.” Which there were no laws about. Daud always found that odd. Billie was old enough to be somewhat rational when she took the throne, though he really doubts a fourteen-year-old is capable of understanding what the position entails. But if her father died before she was born, if she was born in a palace and recognized as his heir right away, she could have technically been crowned Empress at birth. No rule stating she would need a Regent. Obviously they would have instilled one for a baby, but he often wondered where the cutoff point would be.

“And what if there was no heir?” Galia makes a face. “I mean, Delilah’s not that old, but have you seen her waistline? I don’t think that’s healthy for, you know, growing humans inside of you.”

“I think…” Daud has to wrack his memory for this, the snippets of Billie’s law textbooks she read to him during study sessions, all the discussions her advisors had regarding her totally-going-to-happen marriage. “It’s not an automatic thing. The reigning monarch has to name you their successor.” Like Billie did for Thomas. “Otherwise, they’d only take the throne long enough for the next person in line to transition into power.”

“Maybe that’s Delilah’s plan, then,” Lizzy says. “Have Thomas name her his successor. Then...you know.”

“Except courts aren’t stupid, Stride. Seventeen-year-old, healthy Emperor marries woman twice his age, then mysteriously croaks a week after their honeymoon? They’re able to call bullshit. And they would.”

She’s right. The marriage itself would likely be protested, though Daud has no intentions of letting Delilah get that far. There’s no way Delilah could get away with orchestrating an exchange of power like that. And she should know it.

The fact that it’s even a possibility, though, makes Daud’s skin crawl. 

“I’m ba-ack!” Paul strolls in, wrinkling his nose at the corpse on the floor. “Got the party started without me, I see.”

“We still have one fresh victim.” Lizzy motions with her head. “That was quick.”

“Reed was outside being weird. Told him to tell the others and skedaddled.” He snaps his fingers. “No, wait, he was playing with Thomas. Didn’t see him, though. Think they were playing hide-and-seek.”

Cute. Thomas used to love playing that game. He and Billie played it with each other until she was admonished for it, told it was unbecoming for a princess of her age. You can’t act so childish, they said to the child.

“Are there weepers down here?” Paul wanders down the steps. Daud lets him bumble about. The witch is still unconscious, so they aren’t pressed for time.

“I think the witches killed a bunch before we got here,” Galia yells down. She turns back to Lizzy and Daud. “Anyway. What were we talking about?”

“We should be talking about Miss Flower Pants over here.” Lizzy thumbs over her shoulder.

Paul’s voice comes up from under the grates. “Uh, guys? I think I know why the canal went dry.”

Galia narrows her eyes and Blinks down to the lower level. Her gasp is equally impressed and disgusted. “Is it supposed to be pretty? It’s kind of...unnerving.”

“What is it?” Lizzy yells down.

“A fucking tree!” The sound of metal hitting something...softer. “Stride, Fleet and I are gonna try and cut the vines! Start the pump up and maybe we can get it going!”

Daud Blinks down to see the tree quick, but it’s as off-putting as Galia says. Vines keeping their unnatural grip on the machinery, grass and flowers sprouting impossibly from the concrete. A strange moss that seems to almost glow covering the ground.

And it is uncomfortably silent. Full, like the air is singing, but nothing can be heard. Daud returns to Lizzy and watches her crank levers until the pump starts up again.

The three high-five each other when they return. Daud hates to be the killjoy, but he clears his throat. “So. The witch?”

They fight about how to wake her up for a hot minute, but Lizzy ends up pouring a bucket of water of her. The witch sputters, gasps. Her eyes fly open and she stares at Daud standing there, arms crossed, with trepidation.

“Oh, my Void,” she whispers. “You...how are you alive? Niane said there was no way you could have survived, with the open wounds and broken bones…”

As a response, Daud lets the Mark glow.

The witch’s eyes widen, and she trembles.

“Maybe I should…” Paul bats his shoulder lightly. “No offense, Daud, but you didn’t make much progress with the others.”

“The others?” the witch nearly shrieks. Her head whips sideways. “You...you killed Alyssa!”

“You killed my Empress.” Daud keeps his gaze solemn and cool.

The witch practically snarls. “She was worth ten times your Empress ever was!”

“That’s enough.” Paul holds up his hands, takes a knee to look the witch in the eye. “Tell me, do you  _ really  _ think Delilah is doing a good job running the city?”

“Don’t try to appeal to me, you vulture!” she spits. “You’ve allied yourself with a monster!”

“Right, right, you  _ do  _ know that Delilah has caused a couple thousand deaths out of laziness alone, right?”

_ ‘You may appeal to her intelligence.’  _ Daud likes to think of Billie peering over his shoulder, whispering into her ear.  _ ‘If you try her for sympathy, you will find none. Her heart is filled with darkness.’ _

“You’re here looking for me,” Daud says. “Me and Thomas. Why did Delilah send you here, of all places?”

“The writing on the wall.” She glares at him, but she’s talking. “It’s everywhere across the city. Blood or chalk, written in the darkest alleys and across the most prominent signs, reminding the city of your crimes.” She cackles. “Reminds them that  _ you  _ are watching.”

The Crown Killer is Watching. Daud is beginning to regret starting that.

“They don’t think it’s Daud, though.” Lizzy folds her arms.

The witch blinks, and her eyes go wide. “You! You’re the whaler girl Delilah was ranting about!”

“That’s me.”

“So you  _ are  _ the ones who kidnapped the heir,” she says. “Well, Delilah is following the footsteps you’ve left. She’ll smoke you out, mark my words.”

“Yeah. So, Daud and I have only killed, like two people. The rest is seriously just graffiti done by stupid people.”

The witch scoffs. Lizzy steps forward, grabs her by the flowers. “Tell us what Delilah knows about us,” she says in a low voice. “And give us a name.”

“A name?” The witch raises an eyebrow.

“Ashworth,” Daud replies. “We just need you to give us their first name.”

The witch smiles. “And why,” she says sweetly. “Would I do that?”

Without warning, Lizzy pops her across the face. She leans in, her air filter almost touching the witch’s nose.

“Who. Is. Ashworth?”

But the witch just stares. Blankly, almost. Daud almost tries to swat at his ear on instinct before he registers the faint, low humming. 

“What’s going on with her face?” Galia stands on her tiptoes to see over Lizzy’s head. Daud senses the change in the air before he really understands it, and it’s like hitting all the piano keys on his nerve endings. The witch’s skin practically glows orange, the color so deep in her face it’s nearly red. It moves like her flesh is bubbling.

Daud seizes Paul, the only one within grabbing reach, by the back of his coat and throws him in the opposite direction. “Get away from her, now! Run!”

Paul and Lizzy obey without question, but Galia pauses to take out her gun. Daud wraps his arm around her waist and whips her around. “Are you fucking deaf? I said move!”

The witch screams with ten voices, all high and impossibly grating. The ground shakes. Daud turns away and pushes Galia with all his might.

She Blinks to a safer distance, but Paul is unable to and Lizzy apparently hasn’t thought of it. Daud’s only experienced minor earthquakes, but this is how he’d imagine real ones go down. Cracking pillars and dust falling from the ceiling. He Blinks forward to try and grab the two when the toe of Lizzy’s boot catches in the grating, and she stumbles. Falls.

Daud has no time to pick her up, to find them both a safe spot, if there even is one. The air itself seems to be trying to shake them apart. He runs and throws himself on top of her, one hand over her hair and the other braced against the ground. Bends to cover her head and torso with his body and presses her into the ground.

They wait it out.

It’s only after Paul yells if they’re okay and Lizzy begins to stir that Daud lifts himself up, hands on Lizzy’s shoulders to steady her.

“Are you hurt?”

Lizzy shakes her head. Silent.

The damage takes his breath away. The flooring is cracked, fissured in some places, slabs of concrete crumbled and jutting into the air. Vines and thin, winding trees covering the walls and machines. He can’t even see the steel beams above, thanks to the leaf foliage. Somehow the water pump is still working.

He moves his feet and his boots squish. Water is dripping down through the grates, the entire floor resembling swamp grass. Murky, dark blue covering a mossy green.

The witch doesn’t look like a witch any longer. She barely resembles a human. She’s a burnt husk of a skeleton, what’s left of her skin having nearly the texture of wood. Daud’s vision spots as he nears her, like looking into a light for too long and seeing the imprints on his retinas.

There’s whispers in his ears. Low, indistinguishable. Not unlike the words he hears when he uses his magical abilities. The air feels heavy and full.

He turns back to the rest of the group, Galia and Paul still hiding behind machinery and Lizzy standing in the middle of it all as if profoundly confused. “She’s dead, guys.”

“I mean, I’d hope.” Paul steps out. “What the  _ fuck  _ was that?”

“I don’t know. But it means we have to be more careful.”

“Do you think they can all do this?” Lizzy holds her arms out. Her voice is much softer than normal.

Daud shakes his head. “No. The others would have done it themselves.” And whatever _ it  _ was, it was very intense magic. That woman was an irregularly powerful witch. “But going forward, we should assume they can.”

“So what?” Galia shrugs. “Are we not going to question the witches?”

It would make things profoundly easier if they were able to get information from one of these witches, Daud knows. He hadn’t had extraordinarily high hopes, but it was a nice hope to have. Discover Ashworth’s identity, uncover the Butcher mystery. Find out how Delilah could be defeated.

But that information wasn’t worth any of their lives. They could attain it another way. Hopefully.

“No. No, we’re changing this mission to pure liquidation.”

“I think, uh, we got you covered there, boss.” Paul lifts up his soaking wet boot and peers at the underside.

Daud gives him a dry look. “Don’t call me boss.”

“What do you wanna be called? Master?”

“Uh, no. I have a name. Use it.”

They relocate to a maintenance room off the side to do their planning, due to the extreme feelings of ‘what the fuck’ they have regarding the pump station. Daud can hear the hum of bones somewhere close by, but he does his best to ignore it. Not the time. He’s not in the mood to see the Outsider’s stupid face.

“We’ll split into pairs to cover more ground,” Daud says, flattening out Galia’s map on the floor. “Lizzy, you take Paul. Galia and I will search over here.”

“Why does she get to stay with you?” Lizzy complains. Galia gives her a glare.

‘Because if I stick her with you I’ll be short a girl at the end of this’, Daud thinks, but Galia doesn’t really need to hear that. “That’s a fair division. One experienced magic user on each pair. Galia and I have worked together before, so it makes sense for us to pair up.”

“I guess,” she grumbles. “Paul’s not as smelly as some of the other guys, at least.”

“Hey, I bathe more than you!”

“Also remember that Paul can’t use our transversal ability.” Daud stares Lizzy down. “So do  _ not  _ leave him stranded somewhere fifty feet in the air.”

“Aw, but that’s funny.”

“I will make you climb to the top of the clocktower and take away your powers.”

He doesn’t actually know if he can do that, but the threat makes her shut up.

“Are you okay, Daud?” Paul asks. “You’re acting like there’s a fly buzzing around your head.”

“He can hear those freaky whalebone things,” Lizzy sulks. “The charms and the runes? It’s creepy as hell.”

“There are runes nearby?” Galia seems to brighten, getting to her feet.

Daud motions behind him. “Somewhere back there. If you think you can find them, go ahead.”

Galia runs off while Daud maps out their paths with Lizzy and Paul. They keep to irregular, looping patterns just in case someone’s able to track their progress. Throw them off their trail if they can’t discern one easily.

“How are you going to find us?” Paul asks. Lizzy snaps her fingers.

“Daud can Summon us when he needs us. You should feel a connection or something to him-or me too, maybe. I’ve been an only child for a while. I dunno how this works.”

“I think I know what you mean.” Paul purses his lips. “So you’ll call for us when it’s time to meet up?”

“Say every hour or so, I’ll call for one of you. Just to check, see where we’re at. There’s-” He stops, counts. “There were thirty witches, and we’ve killed seven so far. So we know how many corpses we need.”

“And destroy any of those creepy statues,” Lizzy says.

“Right. And  _ don’t  _ let them see you face.” He doesn’t know how much Delilah can see through the eyes of her statues, if she’s still looking through them when she’s not directly possessing them. But he’s not taking any chances.

Galia bursts back in. “I found them!” she squeals.

Daud raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. He’s surprised she found them so fast, without the ability to hear them or see them through Void Gaze. Without Billie showing them to her.

Galia hands the runes to Daud, her grin deflating. “They were on one of those shrines. I tried kneeling at it, but He didn’t appear.”

Of course He wouldn’t. He didn’t choose Galia to Mark.

“Galia,” Daud says, tucking the runes inside his chestplate. “If the Outsider  _ ever  _ appears to you, tell Him to fuck off.”   

 

* * *

 

It takes all day, and well into the night. But in the end, twenty-seven witches are dead, including two of the elusive male witches. A group of three had apparently fled Dunwall before Daud and his team even came across them. Left a note for their sisters and brothers, apologizing but stating that they no longer believed Delilah could save Dunwall. That the city is doomed. Which it well might be. Certainly is under her.

Daud tries not to keep count of how many lives he personally ends. He kills and wipes away the blood and tries to ignore Billie’s voice giving her opinion on his victims. He doesn’t reflect too long on the deserting witches, how it shows that some in the coven aren’t as fanatically dedicated as they thought. Because then he’d start to wonder how many needed to meet their end on his blade. And they all had to die for the safety of everyone in that mill, for the future of Dunwall. So he quiets that part in his head and lets Billie’s words fall on deaf ears. 

It’s around midnight when they finally trudge back into the Draper’s Ward system, Lizzy riding Paul piggy-back unapologetically. Daud’s own back has been giving him trouble for several hours, but he quashes the voice inside telling him to dial it back. The job was done, and he’ll be back in bed soon. At peace with the knowledge that they’re all safe. They killed an entire legion of witches tonight.

And destroyed two out of three of those statues.

“Can I go in and talk to her?” Lizzy’s still wearing the mask, but she claps her hands together as she jumps down from Paul’s back, staring from behind those yellow lenses. “Are you going to make me say please?”

Daud rolls his eyes and brushes her away. “It would be smarter not to engage.”

“No, it would be smart to let Lizzy send her on a wild goose chase. Come  _ on,  _ Daud, you said I could!”

He said if she behaved, though he meant it in a teasing way. He huffs.  _ “Fine.” _

“Ooh! Can I come too?” Paul raises his hand. “Gails, give me your scarf. I’ll look like one of those Tyvian peasant women, with the scarves over their heads.”

“No, no, this isn’t a goddamn party.” Daud waves his arms. “Lizzy goes in alone. She keeps it to a few minutes. Then we blow the damn thing up.” He turns to Lizzy, already at the door. “The mask stays  _ on,  _ Lizzy. I don’t think I need to tell you to be careful what you tell her.”

“Daud,” she says seriously. “I am the careful-est bitch to exist this side of the Wrenhaven.”

The door swings shut behind her, and both Paul and Galia position themselves at the knob, taking turns looking through the keyhole. Daud watches through Void Gaze, as Lizzy wanders up to the statue. She stares at it, then takes out her pistol and fires a shot into the ceiling before Daud can bang on the door and tell her not to.

“Wakey-wakey, bitch.”

“Oh. You again.”

Galia, evidently the one with the first turn at the keyhole, leans back and muffles her exclamations of “geeze, fuck” with her hand.

“I see you found one of my outposts. Don’t worry, dear, more of my sisters will be along to apprehend you shortly.”

“Yeah. No. They won’t.” Lizzy tosses the letter at Delilah’s feet, letting it drift obnoxiously to the floor. “One of your little instruction sheets got around to me. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

“That haircut is not doing her face any favors,” Galia mutters. Daud absent-mindedly nods. Delilah had seemed so regal, so imposing at Timsh’s. He had seen her from the side then, and had just worked Thomas out of her claws. She’s not nearly so intimidating now. Head-on, standing in an upturned coffin, her shrine a little corner of the sewers. Thomas hidden safely away from her, her little army broken. They hold the better hand now.

“Knowing what’s about to happen won’t stop it from happening, my love.” Delilah’s voice remains even, still sickenly sweet.

Lizzy holds her hands up. “What’s going to happen? Your sisters aren’t coming.  _ I killed them.” _

“You’re lying.”

Delilah keeps a straight face, too straight. Daud knows her tells, the little cracks to show that she’s getting nervous.

“Go connect with your other statue things, then. Talk to your witches. Go on, I’ll wait. They won’t answer.”

“Why do you keep your face covered, little peony?” Delilah leans forward. “Are you so horribly scarred that you can’t bear to look upon me with it on display? What are you hiding under there?”

“I’m not hiding anything.” Lizzy folds her arms. “And neither are you. You can’t hide your plans from me, Delilah. You can’t hide from what you did to the Empress and her family.”

“You little…” Delilah brings her hands up as if trying to strangle Lizzy from afar. “You wretch! You kill my sisters, my associates-”

“You said you didn’t care about Timsh.” Lizzy shrugs.

Delilah snarls so intensely they can see it plain on her stiff, marble features.

“Where is the boy?”

Lizzy just stands there, staring. 

Delilah lets out a short, deep scream. “You have no right to him! He’s  _ mine!” _

“Thomas doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“His sister entrusted me to care for him!” she cries. “She  _ asked  _ me to keep him safe, from that  _ monster  _ he calls a father!”

Thomas has literally never once called Daud his father.

“Again, Daud’s dead.” Lizzy taps her foot. “He died of a tetanus infection, like, two days after we picked him up, and we gave him a proper burial because we’re not fucking animals. So you’re not gonna find him now.”

“Tetanus?” Galia pulls back from the door with a pinched expression on her face.

Paul shrugs. “I think that’s lockjaw? Daud?”

“Don’t know, but I don’t have it.”

“Well, aren’t you kind and altruistic,” Delilah mocks. “That man murdered my future wife because he couldn’t stand the thought of her lying with,  _ loving _ anyone but him.”

“Will you cut the crap about the Empress already? I don’t buy it. I  _ know  _ you’re the one that had her killed, so save your fucking breath.”

“Where. Is. Lurk?”

“He’s safe. Far away from you.” Lizzy motions. “Long out of Dunwall. Out of Gristol, actually. So good fucking luck looking for him.”

Daud is rather unnerved by how easily Lizzy is able to lie. Her face is concealed, which would keep any tells hidden, but still. Really, Daud has never seen her lie with her face shown. He doesn’t know her tells. He had known Billie’s, who was an exceptionally prolific liar, often undermined because Daud could always tell when she was lying. Thomas rarely lies-to Daud, at least-but he at least knows what it looks like. If he didn’t know Lizzy’s information was blatantly false, he could believe her.

“Fine. Keep him hidden.” Delilah flicks her hand as if dismissing her. “I will rescue him once again once I have your head on a platter. There is no place in the Isles you can hide from me.”

“Then come find me, Delilah.” Lizzy holds her arms out. “If you have the stomach to wade through the Flooded District, face all the people you killed with your incompetence. You and me will battle it out under the Empress’s eye.”

“Oh, little cuckoo.” Delilah raises her fist. “When I  _ do  _ find you, I am going to tear out your heart and  _ walk in your skin.” _

“I’m not into that kinky shit, sorry.”

“You think you’re so mysterious and  _ special,”  _ Delilah continues. “But I know how you perform your deeds. I  _ know  _ the Mark on the back of your hand. Just like I know the one on mine.” Her voice goes gentle, calm. Reigning herself in. “Five of us chosen, but history will only remember one.  _ De-” _

“If they remember any of us.”

There’s a stunned silence. Then,

“How  _ dare  _ you interrupt me! I-”

“No, once you’re dead we’re going to drop you in a potter’s field and strike your name from everything imaginable.” Lizzy says, plucking a grenade from her coat interior.

“I’m going to-”

“If I do my job right,” Lizzy raises her voice just enough to speak over her. “Then history won’t remember me. It won’t  _ need  _ to. It’ll remember one name and one name only.” She pulls the pin. “Emperor Thomas Lurk, first of his name.”

She throws the grenade, turns on her heel, and slams the door shut behind her right as it detonates and sends Delilah’s effigy to pieces.

 

* * *

 

“Under the Empress’s eye?” Daud has to ask. “Where did  _ that  _ come from?”

Lizzy shrugs, blowing smoke out of her mouth. “I dunno, I just said the first thing that popped into my head. She can drive herself crazy trying to figure out what it means.” She takes another drag. “Sounded really cool, though.”

Wetness squishes under their feet as they exit the sewers, the water level higher now with the pump going. Lizzy pumps her fist in the air once she sees the water wheel turning.

“Sweet, now Jerome can’t blow the power again!”

“And you can get your engine coil back and take me for that boat ride you promised,” Paul says, but Lizzy shakes her head.

“No, because we’re geniuses and locked ourselves out of the engine room. Thank Edgar for that.”

They Blink topside, grabbing Paul by the hands and hoisting him up after he complains about having to use the ladder. 

“What happened down there remains between us.” Daud looks at each of them in turn, his eyes lingering on Paul. “I mean it. Tell no one, and don’t reveal your powers unless it’s life or death.”

“Don’t worry, Daud.” Paul shoves his hands into his pockets, grinning. “You guys are the only ones I’d really tell anyway. Thalia and Gerald are lame. I wouldn’t tell them if they paid me.”

“I’ll keep quiet too,” Galia says, letting her hair loose for the final time this night. “But Zhukov will probably still find out, just to warn you. It wouldn’t surprise me if he already knows you’re Marked.”

Daud doesn’t like that, but as long as Zhukov keeps it to his fucking self, he’ll hold off on knifing the guy.

Lizzy stretches her arms out and yawns in an exaggerated fashion. “Well, I don’t know about you fucks, but witch hunts are tiring business.” She turns to the guardhouse she and Edgar sleep in, windows still lit up. She frowns. “Guess it’s time to face the music.”

“If Edgar is really upset about you doing your own thing, he can go choke on a cock.” Paul crosses his arms. “He doesn’t own you.”

“He gets kinda clingy.”

“Why? You’re not his girlfriend.”

Lizzy waves him away. “I wouldn’t put up with that from a boyfriend. But Edgar and I have been friends for a long time. And he’s not the most independant.”

“So what, he can’t be away from you for a day? That’s his own problem.”

“I’m going to bed,” Lizzy announces, pasting a strained smile on her face. She claps Daud on the back, and he hides the wince. “Night-night, fuckers.”

Daud walks the other two back into the mill, checking behind himself periodically until he sees Lizzy open her door and slip inside. Galia peels off to her own sleeping quarters, but Paul stays and smokes down a cigarette with Daud in the storeroom, watching the water wheel turn. They’ll have to think of some way to explain this, how they fixed it and why they were in the pump station at all. He listens for Galia’s door, opening and shutting as she slips in.

“Just wanted to say thanks, Daud.”

Paul doesn’t look at him, continuing to smoke and tap his ash into the canal.

Daud blinks. “For the powers?”

“For trusting me.” Paul shrugs. “And for choosing me. Most people pass me right over.”

Daud sucks in another lungful of smoke. “Thank Lizzy. She vouched for you when we were talking about this.” He doesn’t mention that Paul wasn’t at the top of his list, if he was going to choose allies to give the Bond to. Definitely in the top five, but not first.

He’s glad he chose Paul, though.

“Well, still, you could have said no. And you didn’t.” Paul nudges him with his elbow, tossing his cigarette butt into the water. “I’m going to hit the hay. Let me know when you need me again. I’ll take  _ any  _ excuse to get away from Thalia for a day.”

Daud waits on the bottom step until he hears Paul’s door click closed, then tiptoes up the stairs. He makes a detour to the kitchen, as even though they had snacked continuously throughout the day on whatever food they found in the witches’ hideouts, his stomach is still growling.

Ricardo is fast asleep on the cot, both Reed and Rose curled up on the floor in front of the stove. She and Lydia must have been released earlier today, then. He doubts Thomas had lessons, but hopefully their return still distracted him. A blanket covers everything below their chests, so Daud can’t see how bad Rose’s leg still is. Reed turns and nestles his face into his sister’s chest, and her arms instinctively curl tighter around him.

Daud grabs half a loaf of bread and swallows the entire thing on the walk back upstairs. Thomas’s side of the room is still lit up. Daud quietly slides his sword under his bed, noting he’ll need to clean the blade before it’s fit to return to Billie’s table. Edgar’s coat is stained with witch’s blood and stinks of mildew. He shrugs it off along with Lizzy’s wristbow, hides them as well. He’d give them back to Lizzy when he remembered it.

Thomas is at his desk, papers strewn out across the surface. One book opened and propped up, one page underneath his pen. He taps the pen against the desk as he reads, his other hand at his chin. Deep in thought.

Daud just stands there for a moment, feeling himself swell with pride. And a bit of annoyance, as it’s clearly past midnight and Thomas should be sleeping, but mostly pride. Thomas is no stranger to hard work, and he’s absolutely brilliant. He’ll succeed where Daud hadn’t, find a cure to save Dunwall. Rule well and bring honor to his name, the name of his sister. The world will remember them.

Daud creeps up to Thomas’s side, puts his hand on the desk to get his attention. Thomas’s eyes slide over to it, follows his arm and finally turns up to see his face. Then Thomas bursts into a grin.

“Daud!” The chair scraps as Thomas pushes it back. “You’re back!”

And Daud is reminded, so much, of another Thomas running towards him in excitement. A Thomas with chubby cheeks and expensive clothes, excited to hear stories of whale watching and pirates and annoying foreign nobles. Running to him over the footbridge, when the air was warm and the flowers in full bloom and their world was alright.

This Thomas throws his skinny arms around him, careful not to jostle his damaged one, and Daud wraps his hands around his waist and his fingers quickly find a stitch where Ricardo has mended his shirt in off-color thread. His mind floods with excuses, but all he can think of is that Thomas hadn’t hugged him as often as he does now in literal years, and even more oddly, Daud doesn’t even mind.

Then Thomas takes a step back, his face alarmingly blank. “You smell like blood.”

Daud maintains eye contact. “We were training all day.”

“And your dummies bled on you?”

“There were weepers in the sewers,” Daud says truthfully. He rubs at his eye. “I was with Lizzy. Galia and Paul joined us.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Thomas takes his seat again, turning back to his papers.

“We fixed the water pump.”

“What if you got sick?” Thomas doesn’t look up, twiddling his pen in his fingers.

Daud refrains from laughing. “We took plenty of elixir, before and after. And none of the weepers touched us.” 

“Could still be transmitted by blood…” Thomas mutters, even though that isn’t proven. “And there are plenty of rats down there.”

“We took out some rat nests too. Thomas, I wasn’t in any danger.” The lie weighs on his lips. He hates lying to Thomas, but it’s necessary. To protect him. Thomas would lose his ever-loving shit if he found out what Daud was really doing today.

“Sure.”

“Thomas…” Daud sighs. “I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about something so important.”

That’s the truth, at least. He isn’t nearly as important as Thomas is.

“No,” Thomas agrees. “But you also won’t tell me everything.”

Daud is silent. Thomas sighs, tilts back the timepiece at the back of his desk to check the clock. “It’s late. I promised Reed we could help Jerome collect oxrush tomorrow, and he likes to go right away in the morning.”

“I can take you two to do that...” Daud mumbles. Thomas shakes his head. 

“Jerome has his pistol. We’ll be fine.” He shuts his book, and Daud catches something about law in the title before Thomas blows out his light. “Good night, Daud.”

_ ‘He wonders about your scars, about your nightmares and what goes on inside your head that you refuse to tell him about. He knows whatever possibilities he imagines are worse than what the reality must be, but he continues to imagine.’ _

One thing Thomas is wrong about. Nothing he conjures up in his head can compare to the truth.

He lays down without bothering to change, dangling his boots over the side of the bed. The night seems too still. He can tell Thomas is still awake.

Part of him thinks he should apologize, but he can’t think of exactly what for. Daud will never apologize for protecting him. For lying to him? Maybe. He could definitely apologize for worrying him, though Thomas would worry about Daud no matter what.

He replays the events of the day, trying to find places where he could have been more careful. That quickly becomes dozens of missteps and risky strikes, and he weighs on each of them. He knows he should sleep, but Daud is not eager to return to his nightmares, to see Billie and watch her murdered all over again.

He probably could have gotten more information out of the witches. The one in the control station was flagging in her loyalty-if they hadn’t pissed her off, hadn’t killed her friend, they probably could have convinced her to divulge more. The girls in the cistern-Daud will fully admit to losing his temper. And they had likely known that would happen. Insulting Billie like that...deliberate attempt to push every one of his buttons. And it worked.

Though some of her words concerned him. About him and Billie sharing a sewer grave. Billie was interred in her proper resting place, in the Imperial Crypt. Daud’s seen the sarcophagus when it was empty, saw her father be sealed in an identical one. Thick walls and a slab of stone that takes four men to lift, which would be cemented in place once the casket was laid down. To prevent body-snatchers, grave robbers. She was sealed in, and even if she never made it there, she’d be in the ocean. Daud almost wishes they had left her body there. He knows she would have preferred a sea burial.

He wouldn’t put it past Delilah to desecrate a corpse out of spite, but the only way she could even get to Billie now would be to smash her tomb to bits, which wouldn’t go unnoticed. Still. He’d have to check once they’re back. Void Gaze should be able to detect a body, so he’ll have to look to make sure she’s really there. That Delilah hadn’t taken her out and thrown her to the trash and rats.

It makes him feel vulnerable, to know Delilah has her body, even though Billie’s not occupying it anymore.

Daud sighs. He toes off his boots and slips his feet under the covers, turning over to let the stove warm his nose. It’s a bit chilled in here tonight. Chilly outside. Something told him there was a cold snap in their immediate future.

Okay, so they didn’t learn much today. Learned Delilah was looking for Lizzy, and the Crow Queen apparently-their alliance went sore, he guesses. The Rat King has a daughter. That one threw him. It was hard to accept that the monsters had faces under their masks-but he supposes they all do. Was her mother the Crow? It occurs to him now that he doesn’t even know if the King and Queen are actually together or if it’s simply a business arrangement. Odd that a couple would both bear the Mark. Unless it was their powers that attracted them to each other.

He doesn’t want to think about  _ them.  _ He doesn’t want to get into it, think about them as people when he cannot fathom how any person could do that to his young, selfless, lovely Billie. 

Thomas’s breath has evened out. He has a few more hours to sleep until sunrise. Hopefully Daud will be able to fall asleep at some point by then.

At least Lizzy had provided some misdirection to Delilah. And Delilah is apparently fooled by her, since she still believes Daud is dead. She’ll have Delilah combing Rudshore now, clear on the opposite side of Dunwall from them, and thinking Thomas had been smuggled out and in hiding in fucking Tyvia or something.

It bothers him that Delilah got this close in the first place, but then, she had chosen an entire quadrant to search. One out of four chance she would have gotten it right. Something about the graffitti leading them there-he believes people would try copy-catting him, but what a bother to deal with. He couldn’t tell why it would be more prevalent here. Though there were areas nearby Draper’s Ward that were much poorer than the Ward itself, and much of the district had fallen to gang violence. Graffiti would be worse here in general.

If only they could have gotten more out of that witch. They could have worked Ashworth’s first name out of them. He doesn’t know how the investigation is going-he’s been brushed off whenever he asks, people trying to give him time to relax and rest. They don’t get it when Daud says he doesn’t need that.

But fuck, what were they going to find? At best, they’d be taking a guess which Ashworth would be most likely to turn to witchcraft and hoping it was the right one. And if they picked wrong, they’d have tipped off Delilah and the true Gardenia. 

They could try interrogating a witch again, but Daud doesn’t know how they’d stop them from using that strange earthquake power. How they’d protect themselves from it. And according to fucking Rothwild, Ashworth never spoke to anyone other than witches from their coven. Operated through them, never lifting a finger themselves, communicated through Delilah and Luca. Them and the…

The Chief Alchemist.

Daud shoots up in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lizzy, Paul, and Galia: "We're all early twenties here so we're adults." Daud, who first killed a man at fifteen: "You are all literal infants."
> 
> Daud's coven is called the Gay Agenda, btw. It works because we've got every letter of LGBTA covered, if we count Mindy/Paul as two. She's a transwoman who currently considers herself a gay man, so technically? They're not going to, like, come on missions in the future, because I am not writing that many four-way conversations. But I needed them to have the Bond for other things. And it's funny. Daud's assassins in canon: "ooh, our master is so mysterious and badass and he could kill us all at any moment!" Daud's assassins here: 'get magical powers from said dude and immediately roast him'
> 
> I've realized a recurring theme in my writing is that I always have a doctor character who over-analyzes people. It's more of an excuse to psychoanalyze the characters myself, obviously. So of course I had to have Trimble do that here. He uses a lot of terms that wouldn't technically exist yet, if the field of psychology progresses the same in the DH universe as in ours, but again, they have magic whale fat so whatever. Is this lazy storytelling? Probably, but I'm not getting paid for this so I can do whatever I want.
> 
> Nobody's questioned yet what Jessamine is supposed to be doing, but there it is. She's not living a double-life or anything, as much as that would rule. Jessamine Kaldwin is supposedly dead. I don't think the dates perfectly line up-Jessamine would have gotten pregnant with Emily and peaced out before Billie took the throne, and Daud would have seen her like once, but I wanted him to remember her. So let's just ignore my horrible timekeeping. I really should just create a timeline. Also, apparently even units of time are different in the DH universe?! One hour evidently equals two hours in our time. So they have twelve-hour days. I didn't know that before and honestly it makes life more complicated than it needs to be, so I am ignoring it. 
> 
> Canonically, there was no Regent after Emily was crowned Empress. I mean, Corvo probably did a lot of it for her and she had advisors and the like, but they literally had a ten-year-old ruling and dealing with the fallout of a plague that killed off a third of Dunwall's population. That's weird. And I doubt Corvo would ever say no to her, so she could have declared national cake day and everyone would have just had to go along with it. Really, Billie should have had a Regent in this AU until she was eighteen. But apparently the Empire thinks literally children ruling is cool.
> 
> You know, I do always love a reveal where a character is like, 'I didn't lie! These things I said are all TECHNICALLY true!' But, you know, some characters lie. It's really boring and predictable when all your characters have something against lying. So plenty of people here are huge liars. Daud isn't because he's weirdly noble about random shit, but he's in the minority.
> 
> Next: uh, gay shit? No, it's an emotional bullshit chapter. Then we go kidnap someone.


	14. Daughter of Tyvia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud drinks the 'Respect Women' juice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, I did not mean for this to turn into the 'we RESPECT women in this conspiracy' chapter, but that's what it sort of became.
> 
> Also I edited out one scene where everyone makes fun of Daud's handwriting, but fret not, it will appear in a future chapter.

Daud continues to bang on the workshop door, trying not to be too obnoxiously loud. Other people _ are _ trying to sleep, after all. He shifts his cane, necessary because he tried getting out of bed and practically doubled over at the intense pain in his back, to his other hand and resumes banging again.

The metal door slides up, revealing a very sleepy Jerome still dressed in a nightshirt and pajama pants. He blinks, seemingly confused by Daud’s existence on his proverbial doorstep.

“Daud, what the fuck?” he says. “What time is it?”

Daud ignores him, ducking down under the door and into the shop. “Where are the dossiers?”

Jerome just watches as Daud hobbles to one of his filing cabinets, pulling out drawers at random. Screws in this one. Wires in the next-no papers. He knows they keep them in here.

“The files,” he repeats, not looking up. “Where are they?”

Jerome finally seems to hear and turns to pull the door down. His face flickers in the dim light, walking towards Daud with a pinched expression. “Are you...okay, Daud?”

He nods absentmindedly. “I’m fine. I just remembered...do you know who the Chief Alchemist is?”

“No?” Jerome blinks. “Isn’t...wouldn’t that be the Royal Physician?”

“Can’t be. Montgomery was hanged after the coup, and Galia says Kaldwin hasn’t instilled a new one.” Poor Montgomery.

“I guess witches never get sick,” Jerome muses, tapping his chin. After Daud nearly breaks one of his drawers shoving it back in, Jerome walks over and gently guides him away. “In the back. Safe with the blue paint on it.”

He’d seen Jerome’s collection of safes before while snooping. A half dozen of them, stacked neatly in one of the back rooms, all labeled with a streak of paint across the doors. He still has to act surprised though, so Daud makes a joke about him robbing a safe shop while Jerome cracks the blue safe open.

“Why do you need these?” Jerome hands the folders over, squinting his eyes in either confusion or tiredness. Probably both. “What’s up with the Chief Alchemist?”

“Just remembered something. Rothwild said it, about Gardenia talking to the Chief Alchemist.” Daud takes the papers back into the main room, where the light is marginally better. “They’d know which Ashworth it is.”

He sets the papers down and starts flipping through them, eyes scanning over translations and notes and whatever the fuck else some of this shit is. Galia’s been adding to the intelligence, reports from her own spies and swiped notes from government officials. The letters run together, and Daud has to blink to get them to go straight again.

“Maybe it’s Sokolov.” Jerome muses. “I mean, I know he’s  _ probably  _ dead, but nobody really knows.”

“Hmph.” Fuck, he hopes not. Basically another dead end. Sokolov would be harder to find than Ashworth. If the old bat was even alive.

Daud has a weird feeling about the Sokolov thing in general. The fact that he disappeared on the same day Billie died, then showed up in his dream...all evidence pointed to him being dead, but that didn’t seem right either.

Maybe he was stuck in between, like Billie is now. Maybe there’s some poor Academy asshole holding his grumpy spirit, trapped in a paintbrush or something.

“Daud?” Jerome’s fingers at his temple. “Did you sleep?”

He leans away. “I can sleep with I’m dead.”

“That’s going to be sooner than expected if, you know, you don’t get any.”

“I’m  _ fine.”  _ This revelation held an answer for him. He just felt it. He couldn’t stop to rest now, when he’s so close to a breakthrough.

“No. You’re not.” Jerome pries the papers from his fingers. “Your hands are shaking. When was the last time you slept through the night?”

It’s been months since the last time he’s been able to sleep in a stretch of more than two or three hours at a time. Before Billie was-before he went on his trip, even. Daud never found the rocking of ships calming in the slightest. Even before that, anxiety had colored his dreams and worry roused him on a consistent basis, thinking about his job and fearing for his Empress’s life. The last time he truly rested, that was when they were homeless.

His sleep last night wasn’t great. And he didn’t sleep at all the night before-couldn’t, with his spine on fucking fire.

Jerome pushes him out of his chair. “Go. Crash in my bed for a spell. I’ll go through this shit.”

Daud shakes his head. “Don’t you need to be up in a few hours to pick flowers or something?” He can’t remember exactly what Thomas had said now, but Jerome just shakes his head.

“I can catch some sleep after that.”

“I-”

_ “Go,  _ Daud.” Jerome starts spreading out papers. “You can take over for me in the morning.”

Daud stands there for a minute longer before turning on his heel, grumbling. He hopes the sound of his nightmares bothers Jerome. He wishes he no longer needed to sleep.

_ ‘Why am I so cold?’  _ Billie’s voice echoes through the thin air. He stops short.

She’s cold.

Here he is, whining about having to sleep. Billie never gets to. Billie is always tired, always lost, always freezing cold and Daud can’t do a thing about it.

Billie first came to him covered in snow, soaked to the bone and teeth chattering so hard she sounded like rattling chains. He’d met her earlier in the day and offered her a warm place to wait out the oncoming blizzard, and she hadn’t taken him up on it until it was clear she’d succumb to the cold if she didn’t find shelter. Hands blue, lips purple, eyes that kept drooping closed until Daud slapped her and yelled at her to stay awake. He hadn’t known her name then. Wrapped her in his coat, put his own boots on her feet to warm her up. The exposure landed her with a terrible fever, but she was alive after it all. Lived for another eleven years.

“You’re cold?” he whispers, letting the Talisman form. “I don’t have a remedy for that. Sorry.”

She thrums in his hands, but says nothing more.

Now there’s nothing he can do for her. She’s freezing because it’s the Month of Ice, because she’s trapped in a tomb of stone that would never truly warm, would still retain a bit of chill even if the sun beat down on it directly, which it will never do. Because he allowed her heart to stop and her blood has run cold. He can’t help her now.

But Daud still tucks the Talisman into the shitty wool coat he’s wearing, presses it close to his heart and draws the coat tight as he lies down on Jerome’s hard cot. He knows the Talisman disappears when he’s not thinking about it, that she can’t really feel it, but…

Still.

 

* * *

 

Something patters against the roof, and she looks up curiously. Then Billie gasps and jumps to her feet.

“It’s raining!”

She runs to the window and drops to her knees, peering up to the rain streaking down the windowpane. Daud rolls his eyes. He doesn’t understand her obsession with the rain. He’s been stuck outside in too many rainstorms, soaked and freezing his ass off, to appreciate them. And he hates thunder. But Billie would run outside and stand under the water until it let up, if she didn’t know Daud would immediately yell at her to get her ass back inside.

Maybe, on some level, it reminds Billie of the seas she seems to love so much. But fuck, she’ll get sick if she keeps doing it. And that thought makes his stomach twist and his frown deepen.

He hasn’t known Billie that long, but he already can’t stand the thought of losing her. Of her getting hurt, or being taken away. Or...fuck no, he can’t imagine her dead. He can’t even remember what the hell he was doing with his life before he met her. What could have been worth it. He can’t return to that. And he can’t let something happen to her. He’d rather die.

He likes Billie. It’s weird. Daud is a loner and he’s always preferred his hobo-solo lifestyle. Kids are not compatible with that, least of all Billie. She’s brash and rude and has a temper like no other, and he loathes every night he has to go out to the black market or on jobs and leave her alone. She can take care of herself, but Daud  _ likes  _ staying in with her. He looks forward to seeing her when his work is done. 

He can’t regret letting her stay with him. Even though she’s mouthy and annoying and expensive, he can’t bring himself to resent any of it. But taking care of her has awakened some dormant part of him that he could live without. Worry.

It’s not the nail-biting, window-watching kind of worry he’s associated with the feeling, but nervousness. Disturbed sleep, pacing, an unsettled, restless kind of anxiety that colors his thoughts now. He can’t shake the worries from his head, can’t stop pouring over them.

What if Billie  _ does  _ get sick? He got lucky last time, was able to stay in that abandoned store for two weeks, so he had a place to park her for the few days she was bed-bound. (or floor-bound, he doesn’t think she’s ever had a bed) He doesn’t know when he’ll need to move on from here. And he can deal with the lack of income from her pick-pocketing, but what if he needs to stay with her, take care of her? What if she needs medicine? A doctor?

What if he’s arrested, and she’s left alone? Would she go right back to starving? What if someone questions why she’s with him? He has no claim to Billie. She could easily be taken away from him, lawfully, sent to the orphanage or the mines, back to her  _ mother.  _ Still end up in the mines, then. Or the brothels. Or just dead in a ditch with all her clothes missing.

What if someone else approached her? Someone like Daud, but with less altruistic intentions?

The thought makes him purse his lips together.

Daud’s seen what monsters people can be, what they can do to children in the name of greed. He knows how they’d manipulate her. Give her food, presents, a place to sleep. Act like they cared. They’d win over her trust only to betray it. That’s what happened to him, but he got lucky. He was trained, used as a weapon. Most kids like him and her, they were tools. Cannon fodder. Pickpockets and thugs, whores in the shitty brothels that paid the Watch to look the other way. 

People like that, they preyed on the trust children gave so eagerly. But it’s not in Billie’s nature to be trustful, and he knows that on some level, she still expects him to turn out that way.

She’s still afraid of him. That’s wearing away, each and every day, but he sees the apprehension in her eyes when he tells her to come over to him, the relief in her face when he comes back from wherever his work had taken him, the way she stiffens up and stares at him with big eyes whenever she drops something. He wants her to trust him. But he also thinks he wouldn’t trust him either, and Billie is probably better off, smarter off not trusting anyone who could hurt her.

Though Daud wouldn’t. He won’t. This is the first thing in years that’s made him smile and he’s determined not to fuck it up.

When he sees Billie, when he sees her smile and by the Void, when he feeds her? He loves giving her food. Loves watching her gobble it up, inhale it so fast it barely touches her tongue. He still saves for her the sweet tarts and the richest cuts of meat, because it’s better watching it pass her lips than tasting it himself. Billie was so skinny when he met her that he could count every one of her ribs, her joints bulging out and exhaustion in her eyes. Defeat. 

Watching her eat, watching the food he gave her transform into fat and muscle that padded her bones, it was cathartic. It dug within him a sort of pleasure at the root of his stomach, the pleasure in filling hers.

Billie looks better now. She smiles more. And when he sees her smile, with that slight snaggletooth of hers, and when those smiles are directed at him? He feels invincible then.

But with the food he gave her came changes. She’s already getting taller. Her hair has stopped falling out, and her eyes don’t look so sunken in anymore. Her face is changing, maturing. And some of those extra calories he’s slipped her have gone to her chest: they’re small, but Billie undeniably has breasts now.

Daud doesn’t care. He likes that she looks healthier, that her body is no longer stunted by malnutrition. He could care less about the rest. She still has that smile, and she’s still cuter than shit.

But Daud’s not the only one who’s noticed. Billie is used to being invisible on the streets, keeping her head down and weaving through crowds like a ghost. So she’s unused to looking out for it, to noticing how men have started staring at her. How they sometimes look at her face funny, like they’re trying to place where they know her, but also how their eyes sometimes drift down and linger on her chest. How they sometimes leer and even lick their lips.

Daud notices. He glares, hovers near her where the men will certainly notice him. Puffs himself up to make him look wider, more menacing, makes sure to show off the scarred side of his face and flash his gun or his knife. They always scurry away then, after realizing Billie’s not alone, and she goes on with her business none the wiser. Like she should be able to. 

People will try to hurt her, take from her what she won’t give freely. She’s smart enough to avoid being lured in with candies and sweet drinks, but that’s only half the process. The other half is what Daud is for.

He’ll stand between her and the fucking Void. Gladly. He’d weather it all if it meant Billie didn’t have to.

But he can’t protect her from everything. And if something happens to Daud, if they’re separated or he gets arrested or ends up dead in an alleyway, she’d be back where she started.

Billie’s gaining weight, getting bigger, but she’s still  _ tiny.  _ Short and skinny and weighs so little Daud could probably toss her around with one arm. Any adult could easily overpower her. She would never take the bait offered to her in the form of hard candies and cake, but someone could throw her over their shoulder and be off with her just as easily. The bribes are just a formality, a way to avoid causing a scene and the first step of breaking someone’s will.

Daud’s given her food and shelter, medicine when she was sick. New boots and a coat and fixed the holes in her existing clothes because she’s even more hopeless than he is with a needle. He’s started teaching her how to read, after she admitted she didn’t know how. He gives it all freely. He  _ likes  _ giving her things.

But it doesn’t seem like enough. She deserves more. Daud doesn’t want it to be all for naught if- _ when  _ something happens to him.

“Billie?” he says softly, getting to his feet.

“Yeah?” She doesn’t turn away from the window.

He creeps up behind her, his footsteps light. Daud bites his lip before he leans over her. “Show me, what would you do if someone grabbed you like this?”

With that, he wraps both his arms around her midsection, pinning her elbows to her side and lifting her off her feet.

Billie immediately starts squirming. “Daud!” she yells, kicking her feet. “Put me down!”

“Show me how you’d get away.”

“No! Let me go!”

“If someone else did this, Billie, they wouldn’t let go just because you asked. You’d have to fight for it.”

Billie twists in place, kicking her feet wildly in the air. But she accomplishes nothing but tiring herself, and she soon stops short. Frozen in place. Shaking.

Daud feels guilty for doing this to her, and worries that he’s undone some of the fragile trust they’ve worked so hard to build. But she can hate him all she wants. This just might save her life.

“Billie,” he whispers, leaning in so his mouth nearly brushes against her ear. She flinches, her eyes squeezed shut, and some of her hair gets in Daud’s mouth but he continues anyway. “Billie, I am  _ not  _ going to hurt you. I’m going to show you how to make someone drop you if they have you in a hold like this.”

She doesn’t open her eyes, but Billie nods.

“Good. Make a fist with your hand-doesn’t matter which one.” She knows how to make a fist without breaking her thumb, at least. One thing he won’t have to show her. “You’ll want to bring your fist down on the groin. Use your arm as a lever. There you go.”

Billie performs the motion so gently he barely feels it, but he drops her anyway. She scrambles away, wrapping her arms around her midsection and looking anywhere but him.

“Are you okay?” he asks. When Billie doesn’t respond, he stands up straight and sticks his chest out. “You can give me one punch for that. A real one.”

“Seriously?” But there’s the ghost of a smile on her lips, and she lands a half-hearted punch into his stomach. It hurts, but only a little.

“Yeah. Seriously.” He rubs the spot on his belly. He deserved that. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, like,  _ warn  _ me next time!”

“I will.” Daud places a hand on her shoulder, eyes cast off to the side. “Billie, we need to talk.”

She freezes, leaning away from him with her eyes wide as dinner plates. “Are you kicking me out?”

“No, for the last time. Put that idea out of your head.”

He doesn’t even own this shithole they’re sleeping in. She has just as much right to it as him.

“I want to talk to you about fighting,” he starts slowly. “About fighting back when people try to hurt you.”

“I’m good at fighting back.” Billie puffs up her chest.

Daud smiles a bit, ruffles her hair. She makes a face that’s probably meant to be interpreted as threatening, though to Daud it’s just adorable as hell. “You’re good at throwing punches, I’ll give you that. But you can’t punch your way out of every situation.”

“Why not? Been working for me so far.”

It really hasn’t. Her agility and her sprinting ability has been her saving grace. But she can’t just rely on not getting caught.

“Billie,” he starts. “All I had to do was grab you from behind and you couldn’t punch me. I could have done anything I wanted with you from there. And you’d just have to accept it.”

She’s quiet. Daud takes a knee, looking up at her.

“I want you to be able to protect yourself.”

“I can!” she shrieks. “I’m tough!”

He bites down his chuckle. “Yes, you are.” He refrains from patting her head again, though he really wants to. “But you have to be more than just strong. Especially for you.”

“Why?” She huffs. “Because I’m a girl?!”

_ “Yes.”  _ Daud grits his teeth. Billie goes silent, not expecting that answer. Daud moves his other hand to her shoulder. “Billie, being a woman doesn’t make you weaker. But it makes you a  _ target.” _

She’s silent for a long moment, but then she nods. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense.”

“Good, because there’s a lot I want to show you.” Daud stands up.

“Are you gonna teach me how to use your sword?” There, the sparkle in Billie’s eyes. The smile.

Daud laughs and ruffles her hair. “Not right away, but sure.”

“Boo.”

“You remember what I told you about reading, how we have building blocks of knowledge? Fighting’s kind of like that. You need to know some basics before you start building on it.” She still looks a little disappointed, so Daud leans in close. “I’ll show you how to shoot too, if you do well.”

_ That  _ makes her grin.

“So can we start now?” She practically bounces. “Can you teach me that Tyvian chokehold first?”

“Uh, actually, dinner’s about ready. So after we eat.”

 

* * *

 

Daud rubs sleep from his eye as he steps out of from the storeroom Jerome’s claimed as his bedroom. The Dressmaker is already seated at the table, sipping tea and looking up at Daud in befuddlement.

“Morning,” Daud yawns.

“Um, good morning.” The Dressmaker frowns. “May I ask, why are you-”

“He came to me at fuck o’clock in the morning and I made him go back to sleep.” Jerome’s voice comes from another area of his workshop, behind a chalkboard and various bits of furniture. “Don’t go getting ideas.”

Right. This probably looked...suggestive.

“I was going to say,” the Dressmaker says, as Jerome walks back into view with a pot of coffee in hand. “Neither of you seemed...you know…”

“No offense to Daud, but he’s not my type.” Jerome pours himself a cup and sets the hot pot down on the scarred table. “Help yourself, Daud. Cups are on the green shelf.”

“Do you always color-code your shit?” Daud grumbles, reaching for one.

Coffee in hand, Daud sits and tries to figure out where to put his cup down without getting any papers wet. Jerome clears his throat.

“Okay, so I looked through everything to see if there was mention of alchemists, but there’s nothing. Zilch. Nada.  _ But,”  _ he jitters, drumming his fingers along the table. “I remembered the Academy alchemists were charged with creating a cure, and someone has to be in charge! Perhaps a  _ chiefly  _ someone?”

“I think you’ve had too much coffee,” Daud grunts, sipping his own. Jerome nods excitedly.

“This is my fourth pot!”

“He’ll crash in another twenty minutes, don’t worry.” The Dressmaker sips from his teacup. “He’s been on and off for the last hour.”

“So these alchemists,” Daud says. “Do we have any names? Any ideas who the head of the department could be?”

“Unfortunately, no.” The Dressmaker shakes his head. Daud holds back the groan that wells up in the back of his throat.

“Couldn’t you ask your niece who the Chief Alchemist is?” Daud turns in his seat. “Wouldn’t she know?”

“Perhaps.” The Dressmaker stares at the table. “Likely, it would be whoever the head of the Department of Medicine is currently, but I have no idea who that is.”

“How do you not know? Isn’t your niece studying  _ medicine?” _

The Dressmaker pauses for another drink. “The Lady Regent has virtually isolated the Academy from the outside world. To allow them to focus on the cure progress, and to keep them from contracting the disease themselves.”

Well, that makes sense, as much as Daud hates to admit it. The researchers and students of the Academy are really the best hope for finding a cure for the plague before it kills everyone in Dunwall. If they fell to it themselves, there would be no hope left for the rest of them.

He doesn’t remember how Billie had dealt with the Academy. She was really hoping Daud would come back with better news. If it were a different situation, he’d have warned her against putting all her eggs in one basket, but he knew she didn’t do it willingly. She was running out of options, and she knew it.

“So you haven’t actually spoken to your niece lately,” Daud says slowly.

The Dressmaker shakes his head. “Not since...well before the Empress was assassinated, I’m afraid. We were-”

There’s the sound of babbling outside the shop, wafting in from the open doorway. The Dressmaker glances over, then whips his head back and jumps to his feet.

“What the  _ fuck?”  _ he exclaims before rushing outside. Daud blinks and stares after him.

“Um, is that legal?” Jerome leans forward, eyes darting between Daud and the Dressmaker’s retreating form. “Like, is he legally allowed to say that?”

But then the Dressmaker turns and Daud sees the reason for his outburst. Rose is standing in the hallway, her pregnant belly on full display.

“Oh.” Daud sips his coffee. “He didn’t know.”

Jerome does a double-take. “What the hell? She was born, like, five minutes ago!” He looks to Daud. “You knew?”

“Thomas figured it out. Don’t bug her about it. It...wasn’t her fault.”

“I...see.” Jerome taps his fingers against the table, staring off into the distance. “You know who the baby daddy is?”

Daud shakes his head. “She wouldn’t tell me. Probably because she knew I’d kill him if she did.”

“Rightfully so. Void…” Jerome scoffs, looking away. “Ugh. Who  _ does  _ that? How old even is she, for real?”

Daud sips. “Sixteen.”

“Seriously? I thought she was like...twelve…”

He must have a pretty quizzical look on his face, because Jerome raises his hands before he can respond. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m not that smart.”

Daud pushes himself up as Jerome goes to collect his coat and whatever else Jeromes bring on flower-gathering trips. The Dressmaker is still talking to Rose in hushed tones, hand on her cheek and his face shadowed. Rose just continues to smile sheepishly.

Thomas is sitting on a bench nearby, talking animatedly with Reed. He stops short when Daud looks their way, his smile falling off his face like all the leaves on the trees.

“Daud. Hey.” Thomas presses his lips together. His eyes flick up to the store sign over Jerome’s workshop, and under normal circumstances Daud might justify why he spent the night at Jerome’s, but he just does not feel up to it right now. 

“Boys.” Daud nods. Reed stares up at him blankly and practically shrinks into Thomas.

He turns his back to them. Walks back to Rose, ruffles her dreadlocks to the best of his ability. “Good to see you on your feet again. How are you feeling?”

“About as good as expected,” Rose shrugs. “Had to find a new wardrobe. Couldn’t hide the bump much longer anyway.”

“You look nice. I didn’t know they stocked maternity clothes anywhere in here.” This  _ was  _ an upper-class shopping district, and it was mainly the wealthy who bought tailored maternity wear. The lower classes either wore larger-sized clothing or let out the seams in their existing clothes. But that wasn’t the type of thing rich shoppers would often buy out on excursions.

But Rose shakes her head. “They don’t. This is a man’s shirt.” She runs her fingers under the suspenders holding her skirt up. “And this is about five sizes too big for me.”

“Then why are you wearing it, then?” Daud asks. “We have...you know, pants.” He doesn’t even know where she found a skirt.  _ Nobody  _ wore skirts now, except for the most formal occasions.

Rose snaps the suspenders against her shirt. “Can’t!” she says brightly, and pulls her skirt and petticoats up. “I like to call it the torture device. Trimble’s making me wear it until I can get my stitches taken out, and there’s no way to get pants over it.” She drops the fabric and covers the thick, immovable cast covering her thigh, fluffing her skirts a bit. “Now I feel like this baby will come flying out of me if I sneeze too hard.”

Daud stares at her legs. “Won’t you be cold?” It was the Month of Ice, after all, and while Rose is wearing boots that lace up to her knees and socks that cover even more, he’d imagine she still felt the breeze...higher. 

Rose shrugs. “The cold never bothered me. I’ll be fine.” 

“Okay, little minions!” Jerome announces brightly, exiting his store. “Hoods up! No one’s usually out at the ass-crack of dawn, but at least one of you is being hunted down by the Watch.”

“You can say it’s me, Jerome, we all know it.” Thomas sighs and pulls his hood over his head.

Daud forces his nerves to quell as he sits back at the table. They wouldn’t be venturing far from their stronghold-half a block away, at most. With someone armed. If he couldn’t stomach that, how was he going to deal with the decades ahead of guarding the Emperor of the Isles without driving them both mad?

“I can try smuggling another letter to Alex.” The Dressmaker’s soft voice breaks him out of his thoughts. He doesn’t look at Daud, scribbling on a piece of paper, bifocals pushed up his nose. “But I can’t promise she’ll receive it-or be able to send a reply.”

“They’re blocking mail too?” He supposes he can see the logic in that-nobody was quite sure how the plague was transmitted yet, so germs carried in on a parcel certainly wasn’t ruled out. But the same could be said for their food deliveries, or any of the supplies they require at the Academy. And they certainly couldn’t banish the  _ rats. _

But the Dressmaker shakes his head to that. “No, it’s...it’s something with Alex, specifically.” He carefully removes his glasses, fingering the edges of the frame. “She’s been...odd, for quite some time now. Avoiding her family, she ended things with this nice fellow she was seeing, classmate of hers...even when I did see her, she just seemed exhausted, and she had trouble remembering things.”

“Sounds like burnout.” Daud sips his now luke-warm coffee. He’d seen burnout plenty of times, usually on young, ambitious innovators and politicians, eager to prove their worth and save the world. Nobody could do that alone. He’d made it one of his duties to keep Billie from burning out. Take away her pen and lock her out of her office, forcing her to spend an afternoon training or boat-watching. Or just taking a nap. She never got enough sleep, after she was crowned.

“That’s what I thought to.” The Dressmaker’s hand at his mouth, staring worriedly at the rings in Jerome’s table. “But they...she missed her own mother’s funeral. My sister, she died in the early days of the plague. Her husband sent Alex a letter, but she never got it. She didn’t know her own mother was dead and buried until she came to visit me a month later.”

Daud watches the coffee stain the interior of his cup. “That’s awful.”

“She felt horrible. I don’t think my nephews ever forgave her.” He shakes his head. “She’d write to me and tell me about this important project she was working on, couldn’t go into detail but she was immensely proud to be selected-this was before Sokolov disappeared, so it wasn’t a cure.” The Dressmaker sighs, tracing one of the rings with his finger. “I received a letter, not long after dear Billie’s passing, telling me that Alex couldn’t afford distractions. Commanding me not to write her anymore. I’ve paid a few couriers to smuggle notes to her, but I have no idea if she ever received them…”

Well, that was all very...odd.

“Anyway.” The Dressmaker blinks, attempting a smile. “I’ll have another one sent, perhaps I’ll see if Galia knows someone who can sneak it to her, bring a response back...” He rubs at his eye. “And maybe she’ll come clean about whatever is ailing her.”

“I’m sorry,” Daud says. “You speak very highly of her. You must love her a lot.”

The Dressmaker smiles to himself, softly. “I never had my own kids, doubt I will now, but with my niece and nephews...it was everything I imagined being a father was like.”

_ ‘This heart...such kindness is unparalleled. A gentleness that borders on naivete. A welcome change.’ _

Billie’s voice is like a breeze. Happy, almost. Gentle.

“I suppose the same way it was for you and the Empress.” The Dressmaker is smiling at him now, and Daud puts the Talisman away out of instinct.

“Oh, uh…”

“I remember her fondly,” the Dressmaker continues. “She was such a delight to work with. I mean, difficult because she never stood still, but it was hard to care when she made us laugh so. Such wit, in such a small package!”

“She was particularly witty,” he says, coughing. Witty wasn’t the term others had used for her. Uncouth, imprudent. Daud just found her funny. “I appreciate you telling me that.”

“She was so... _ special. _ And she loved you like a father.”

“Billie had a father,” Daud says sternly. Not the one she deserved, but better than him. “I know he didn’t act like it, but he was her father.”

“Didn’t act like it?” The Dressmaker blinks. “Are we talking about the same man? Emperor Lurk adored her.”

“Always sour with her around,” Daud mumbles. “Annoyed. Like she wasn’t worth his time.”

“That’s not how I remember things...but I suppose, he was usually that way around you.”

Daud coughs. “Excuse me?”

The Dressmaker doesn’t seem to react. “He was profoundly uncomfortable with you in the room. Likely because you always glared at him like you wanted his head to spontaneously explode...my assistants mentioned it to me several times.”

“I never did that.”

“I won’t argue with you.” The Dressmaker shrugs. “But I saw it a different way. I’d known the Emperor since his coronation, and I never saw him as happy as he was after he found out he had a daughter. She made his final months bearable.” He chuckles. “He always looked at her with this funny grin on his face, like he could scarcely believe his luck.”

“He thought he was sterile,” Daud says sourly. “To him, it was lucky that he got one heir out of his ballsack.”

“You’re being quite hard on the man.”

“He was a drunk who left his only child to be abused and starved for thirteen years.” Daud stares the Dressmaker down. “At that point, the best thing he could have done for Billie was leave her alone, let her live her life, and he couldn’t even do that.” 

If Billie hadn’t been forced to take the throne, she would still be alive. Of that, Daud has no doubt. He trained her to fight, to survive, and it would have been more than enough on the streets. The crown came with a target, and eventually someone honed in on Billie in a way that she had no hope of countering. Of course it was the time Daud failed her as well.

“This is clearly a touchy subject, so I won’t bother you about it again…” The Dressmaker straightens the pens strewn across the table into neat little rows. “I just...I’ll be honest, I was absolutely terrified of you the first time I met you.”

“You will not believe how many people have said that exact sentence to me.”

“I believe it.” The Dressmaker nods. “We had heard rumors about the new princess, of course, and no one was quite sure what to make of you. They said you were extremely protective. You weren’t Royal Protector yet, so my assistant tried to usher you out so we could do her fitting, and the look you gave her sent her to tears.”

Well, that makes Daud sound like an asshole  _ and  _ a creep. He’ll own up to being the first one. He...it wasn’t like he watched her change. He kept his back turned while she was indecent.

“You just sort of stood there, angrily,” the Dressmaker continues. “But then Lady Billie called your name and...I don’t know how to explain it. You turned to her and your face didn’t change, but your eyes just...sparkled. Just filled with this special sort of kindness and I...I remember thinking she was going to be alright, if she had you looking out for her.”

Daud is silent. The Dressmaker coughs into his elbow.

“Goodness, I rambled...I’m sorry, I just...thought it might bring you some comfort.”

“Don’t worry.” Daud doesn’t look up. “It did.”

“Thomas was lovely but, of course, he still is. Billie...she was a special woman,” the Dressmaker says, getting to his feet. “The world is worse off for her absence.”

It really is. The Dressmaker turns to leave, and Daud holds his hand up. “Wait. I...” he trails off, unsure of how to really initiate the question. “Emperor Lurk...gave you a lock of Billie’s hair once. Do you still have it?”

At this, creases break out around the Dressmaker’s face, hands dancing around each other and eyes looking everywhere except Daud. “No, I do not...and I’m loathe to disclose the reason why.”

Daud just stares. Leaves no room for argument. Finally, the Dressmaker sighs and sits back down.

“This is quite the long story…”

Daud has fuck-all to do besides pour over intelligence reports and rip his hair out.

“So when I was still able to work the needle, I had many clients among the nobles,” the Dressmaker leads in. “The Ramseys, the Brigmores, I knew Lady Lydia and her sisters as children. I also worked for the Kaldwins.”

That makes Daud lean in closer.

“Lady Delilah,” the Dressmaker says. “And sweet, sweet Jessamine. Did you know her?”

“I may have met her once,” Daud mumbles.

“Lovely woman. Kind soul and a true beauty...I considered her one of my friends. Her life was cut short far too early.” He taps the tips of his fingers together. “Delilah, however, I fell out of contact with. She was the troublemaker, always running off...I think she personally took five years off their father’s life, with her worrying him so.”

Sounds fitting.

“She came to me, maybe a year ago.” And the Dressmaker’s eyes are far off, somewhere else. “Such a surprise to see her, all grown up. So serious...she was so charming as a child. I thought it was a cordial visit at first, but it turned... _ frightening.” _

“What happened?” Daud’s voice is raspy, impatient.

The Dressmaker raises his hands, motioning around his head. “She made... _ things  _ come out of the shadows. Long and grasping, I can...still feel the cold on my neck.” He shakes his head. “I sound mad, don’t I?”

“No.” Daud’s seen much madder things. “You know she’s a witch.”

“I know that now.” The Dressmaker nods. “At the time, I wondered if I was going insane. She...interrogated me, that’s the only word for it. Then she left me propped in the corner like a bolt of cloth. I couldn’t move for three nights, while she made these...horrid markings.”

“Markings?”

“I can’t explain them...just imagining them gives me chills.” The Dressmaker shakes his head. “She rooted through my drawers, and I told her where my valuables were...she never touched my safe. Instead, she stole my lock of hair from sweet Lady Billie.”

“I see.” Daud runs his finger over the grainy wood. “Is that all she stole?”

“Well, that, and a barrette that had belonged to her departed sister.” The Dressmaker shrugs. “Though I would have given it to her had she merely asked...Jessamine had left it behind while visiting me, a few weeks before her death. I planned to give it back to her when I saw her again, but…” He shakes his head. “In my grief, I had forgotten about it, or else I would have returned it to the family...but once I found it again, time had passed and I felt it would be cruel to bring up. She was the same age as Billie was...always be that age, now. Lovely Billie, beautiful Jessamine... _ damn  _ that Corvo.”

The name send shocks up Daud’s spine. Corvo, Corvo. He’s heard that name before.

“These drawings,” Daud leads in, trying to suppress the uneasiness instilled in him by the name. He’d think on it later, but he can’t afford to be consumed by anxiety right now.

The Dressmaker, however, just shudders. “No, I refuse to speak one more word about them. You’ll just have to see them for yourself.” He begins scribbling on a sheet of paper.

“You never erased them?”

“I wasn’t going to touch them, evil things. I fled my home and stayed with my brother-in-law, when he was alive...I met Jerome and he helped me move most of my possessions out of my old apartment. I couldn’t be in there alone…”

“I understand,” Daud says, and takes the slip of paper offered to him. “Thank you, for telling me.”

“Thank you for understanding,” the Dressmaker says. “You...I’d do anything for Lady Billie, and that’s why I’ve never regretted joining this team. But you and Lord Thomas, you’ve done nothing but reaffirm that my choice was the right one. I wasn’t expecting that from you.” He smiles, not showing his teeth. “So thank you for proving a mad old clothier wrong.”

 

* * *

 

The air is different inside the Dressmaker’s old apartment. Heavier, and...wrong. Like everything has shifted just off its mark.

He doesn’t know if it’s like this in the rest of the building. Daud had Blinked straight onto the balcony, walked right in because who locked their balcony door? He hadn’t felt it outside, so probably not. Magic didn’t work like that. It was centered around a singular focal point, spitting out an aura as far as it can reach. Walls and floors did nothing to impede its flow.

_ ‘There is a strange power here. Dormant, but potent.’ _

Dormant. Daud pushes down the trepidation and closes the door behind him.

The Dressmaker’s old bedroom is small, a chest of drawers and a double bed with a homely quilt. A book and a now-dry glass left on the nightstand. Daud roots through the drawers quickly, but it’s only clothes the Dressmaker had apparently deemed unworthy and left behind.

Stepping into the living room is like getting hit in the face with a bucket of water. It’s practically muggy, despite the chill, and there’s a strange smoky scent that makes it harder for Daud to inhale.

And the markings. Everywhere.

_ ‘I will peel back all the lies and symbols,’  _ Billie says to him.  _ ‘Cracks in the world, formed from the Outsider’s birth. And her own hand.’ _

She doesn’t elaborate, and when Daud aims her at one of the drawings, squeezes her tightly, there’s a sound so faint it seems to exist at the edge of his hearing. Like she is sputtering, choking. Nothing to say. And he doesn’t know if Billie can feel pain, however she is, but he can’t shake the feeling that he is hurting her.

Daud lowers his hand, but he keeps Billie clutched between his fingers. Just feeling her there makes him feel better. Stronger.

There’s no sign of squatters or looters here, or even pests. The bits of trash and droppings that come with the presence of rats are mysteriously absent, leaving the wooden floors cleaner than practically any other place in Dunwall. Even they’ve sensed something wrong about this place. Daud steps further in.

The Dressmaker’s living area had ostensibly doubled as his studio, as the room is littered with bolts of cloth and mannequins displaying half-finished projects. A sewing machine covered by a thick layer of dust sits in the corner, underneath a copy of a painting commemorating the Empress’s coronation. After the crown was placed on her head, the orb and sceptre in her hands, standing in front of her throne as whatever noble was in charge of it read her duties out to her.

Daud steps closer, pressing his lips together. He’s seen this painting before, but infrequently. And not since her passing.

Billie had worn a dress the Dressmaker had designed himself, so it would make sense he would have a picture of it. Off-shoulder, dark red with black tulle over the bodice and the train. The intricate embroidery on the skirt had to be rushed to have the dress ready in time for the coronation. Sleeveless. Daud remembers being annoyed by that, as she had been crowned in the Month of Darkness and Daud was not permitted to lend her his coat. She had shivered all day. 

She had won the battle to let her wear her hair in her mostly-natural state, so her curls were neatly pinned back just enough not to obscure her face. It reached her mid-back then-the Emperor had liked her with long hair, and she had kept it like that for several months after his death. Eyelids painted gold and lips a deep red, rouge applied to her cheeks. They had finally found a foundation that didn’t make her look like she had flour dusted across her face. For so long, Daud didn’t know why her appearance that day made his so uncomfortable. But when he thinks back, that day was the moment they stopped dressing her like a little girl and more like a woman. Top padded to accentuate her chest rather than obscure it, heels to make her taller, make-up that made her look five years older. Red instead of the pinks and whites she wore as a princess. 

But she wasn’t an adult, no matter how much they tried to make her look like one. She was an Empress, but she was also a fourteen-year-old girl who had lost her father a week earlier. The painting makes her face look stoic-bored, even. In reality, her eyes had been so wide he could see the whites all the way around, she had chewed her nails and rubbed most of the fancy polish off, and the reason she was gripping the sceptre closer to the middle than the base was because it had slid down her sweat-slicked palm. Her hands shook so bad she nearly dropped the orb-thing that Daud never truly understood the purpose of. She hadn’t cried that morning, but was so stiff and silent while the maids dressed her that Daud wondered if she had managed to faint standing up. 

He wasn’t permitted to comfort her. Billie later said she didn’t even remember him being present.

He is present in the painting though, one of the men standing behind the Empress, in low detail. Daud’s role in the ceremony was to step forward and swear to protect the new Empress with his life. He remembers practicing his vow in the mirror, determined not to fuck it up when Billie was so nervous about screwing up hers.

She’s beautiful, almost as beautiful as she looked that day. Daud still hates it. She didn’t look like herself.

But he’s still glad Delilah hadn’t drawn on the picture.

Her drawings cover much of the living room, on the walls and streaked across the floor. Odd circles and eyeballs and harsh angles. A rune burns in the middle of one such drawing, and Daud plucks it from the wall. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t heard it before. Perhaps that was Delilah’s magic as well, silencing it.

The drawings are chalk, as he finds out, not blood like he had first assumed. They look familiar. Daud roots through the Dressmaker’s drawers, looking for paper to copy the images down. An old sketchbook, the most recent sketch dated several years back, leaving half the pages blank and ready for his pen.

_ ‘He cannot purge his mind of the memory. He feels as if a cracked mirror, peering through the broken glass. The voices echo in his mind, and before he knew you, he was certain he belonged in an asylum.’ _

Poor guy.

Daud flips to a blank page, shakes his head to clear his mind as he copies the symbols down. He’ll have to track down Granny Rags. Ask for a lesson.

He’d seen Jerome and the kids earlier, while Blinking across the canal to the Dressmaker’s old apartment building, and they’re still out now. Thomas is standing at the edge of the canal, arms behind his back and his hands grasping his elbows. Hood down as he watches the water. Smiling.

Daud has half a mind to Blink down and scold him for not keeping his face hidden, but...the block  _ is  _ deserted. Daud knows it for a fact. And he’s in no hurry to see that smile on his face disappear.

Jerome and Rose are down the stairs, nearer to the water’s surface. He doesn’t know how many flowers they’ll get from the asphalt, but alright. He spots Reed maybe half a block away, scouring somebody’s front lawn.

Daud Blinks down behind Thomas, purposely making his footsteps audible as he comes up behind him.

“Hey.”

Thomas turns to acknowledge him, the smile diminishing a bit but not disappearing completely from his face.

“Hi.” He turns back to the canal.

Daud lights a cigarette and leans against a bit of railing a few feet away, so not to bother Thomas with his smoke-doesn’t lean too hard, as about half the railing around the canal has toppled over and this section looks like it’s still making up its mind about doing so.

“Got tired of picking flowers?” Daud asks. Thomas shakes his head.

“I’m just taking a break. I’m...not much help anyway.”

Right. One working hand. And it wasn’t like Thomas was used to working in the dirt anyway.

They’re silent for a moment. Daud smokes. Thomas watches the canal. Below them, Jerome laughs at something Rose says. Daud turns to check on Reed, but he’s still happily plucking away, filling his bucket.

Thomas speaks without tearing his eyes from the canal. He’s not smiling anymore.

“Why won’t you tell me what happened to you in Coldridge?”

Daud sighs and taps his ash. “Thomas-”

“I want an answer.” Thomas turns to him. “You don’t tell me anything anymore. I don’t keep secrets from you, so I really don’t think this is fair.”

He’s right. It isn’t fair. But Daud will never tell him that.

“I don’t want you thinking about me that way,” he admits.

“Daud.” Thomas’s eyes are wide with pity, and that just makes the rock in Daud’s gut harder. “All I think is how happy I am that you’re alive.”

Thomas says he didn’t believe Delilah and her cronies, when they told him Daud was dead. He’d constructed a fantasy explanation for everything, one where the coup failed and Billie was still Empress, where Delilah was lying to him about everything that had happened. Where Thomas was the sole casualty and there’d be a team of guards busting down Timsh’s door any moment, ready to spirit him back home where everything was okay. But still. There had to be a part of him that doubted himself. A part that believed Daud was dead and that Thomas was truly alone for six months.

He understands why Thomas preferred the fantasy. Daud sometimes wishes he could have had one too. But Daud’s never been good at lying to himself. And he saw her afterwards. He knew she couldn’t survive.

Daud stares at the still water, tries to commit the way the sunlight reflects off the surface to memory. “You don’t need to know.”

“I do. Let me in,” Thomas pleads. “If you don’t want to talk about it, at least let Lizzy tell me.”

“Lizzy doesn’t know anything either,” Daud mumbles.

“Daud, you’re the closest thing I have to family,” Thomas says, biting his lip. “And that’s never changed. It never will change. But  _ you’ve  _ changed. I want to know why, and I’ve been imagining…” Thomas shakes his head. “Just tell me the reality, so I can stop imagining worse ones. Please, Daud. I think you need to talk about it too.”

_ ‘He clings to childish things, wishing back the security they gave him before. But they bring him only brief comfort.’ _

Daud keeps his eyes on the water. Smokes the last of his cigarette. Flicks the butt into the water and pushes himself away from the railing.

“Thomas,” he says, turning to face him. “Worry about your studies. Worry about what you’re going to do once you’re on the throne. Worry about all the bullshit you’re going to have to deal with then. Don’t worry about Coldridge.” Daud places a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and Thomas stares at it, tired. “And _do_ _not_ worry about me.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything. Then there’s the sound of footsteps behind them, Reed holding a bucket of flowers.

“Hi Mr. Daud,” Reed says through his bangs. 

“Hey, kid.” Daud shoves his hands in his pockets. “What you got there?”

He raises his bucket. “Pansies.”

“We’re supposed to be looking for oxrush, Reed, remember?” Thomas lowers himself to the ground and dangles his legs off the side of the wall.

“But Jerome said the water swallowed them all up! I-I tried to look, but I thought-”

“Reed. It’s fine.” Thomas shakes his head. “Come over here. Show me how you do those daisy chains.”

“Okay, but these aren’t daisies…”

Daud hovers back a bit as Reed shows Thomas how to move his fingers to manipulate the stem of a purple pansy. The block is still deserted-Void Gaze picks up nothing, and even Daud’s advanced hearing can’t detect anything other than the five of them. And the rats.

“Mr. Jerome was really upset when he saw the water, Mr. Daud.” Reed’s started braiding flowers of pink and white into Thomas’s hair now, not even looking up at him. “Said it killed all the oxrush.”

Daud blinks. “Oh. Well, there will be more flowers. You found plenty.”

Reed nods, selecting a white pansy from his bucket. “I wasn’t mad. There was so much garbage down there. Now you can’t see any of it.”

“It’s still there, though,” Thomas mumbles. “There’s so much trash in the Wrenhaven…”

“But the river flows into the ocean though, right?” Reed says, plucking up another pink flower. “So it’ll all disappear. Like Empress Billie’s body.” Daud chokes. Reed turns his face back up to him, eyes wide and blank. “Is that why you turned the water back on, Mr. Daud? So you had a place to hide your bodies?”

Daud’s tongue sticks to the top of his mouth. Thomas turns as much as he’s able to, with Reed holding onto his hair. “No, there’s...why would you say that?”

Reed shrugs. “I heard Daud killed lots of people. Where is he putting them all?” He starts weaving in another flower. “You should kill Gerald next, Mr. Daud. He’s mean to my sister.”

“We don’t hurt our friends, Reed,” Daud says.

“Gerald isn’t my friend.”

“He’s our  _ ally,”  _ Thomas lectures. “All of us here, we’re allies. That means we’re in this together, even if we don’t like each other very much. So we don’t fight...we don’t hurt each other, and we certainly don’t  _ kill  _ our allies.”

“I saw Edgar push Galia into the wall the other day.” Reed blinks. “And she pushed him back. They were fighting.”

“They shouldn’t have been doing that either…”

_ ‘Poor Reed,’  _ Billie sympathizes.  _ ‘His childhood is lost.’ _

“So why don’t you make them stop?” Reed ties in another flower, though Thomas’s own hands have stopped their work. “Aren’t you the Emperor?”

“Not yet. And that’s not the kind of thing I’d have control over.”

“Why? You should have all the mean people thrown into the ocean.”

Thomas doesn’t say anything to that. Daud tries to intercede.

“Emperors are supposed to love their subjects. They don’t do that sort of thing, Reed.”

“Why not?” Reed doesn’t even halt in his flower-braiding. “That’s what mother said she did to my pa.” He shrugs. “But she also said she fed him to the pigs, so I dunno what the truth is.”

Daud’s saved from having to answer when Jerome greets him, helping Rose up the last step.

“How’s the oxrush search coming?” Daud says quickly, turning away from the boys. 

Jerome makes a face. “Horrible. Oxrush grows best in muddy soil, so the canal was absolutely perfect before. Now I guess I’ll have to row out to the shore.”

“Because Daud drowned all the flowers!” Reed says excitedly. Daud looks down.

“I mean, the riverbed would have dried out soon anyway…” Jerome muses. “I just got spoiled, with it all being right here. I’ll have to go out by myself, though, it’s too dangerous for you sprouts at the riverfront.”

“You giving Thomas a new hairstyle?” Rose lightly pokes the petals on a light pink pansy. Thomas laughs uncomfortably.

“Who needs the Imperial crown when I have a flower one, right?”

“You need a royal color then! Reed, do you have more purples?”

Reed nods and starts digging through his bucket, then frowns as he pulls out a yellow flower. “I thought I squashed all of these.”

Thomas reaches out to take it. “It’s okay, we can-”

“No. I hate the yellow ones.” Reed throws it to the ground and picks up a nearby rock. Then he starts beating the flower against the asphalt, until the mangled petals fall off and all that’s left is a crooked, sad stem.

 

* * *

 

Due to having stitches in her thigh and currently carrying around an extra dozen or so pounds of baby-related weight, Rose is given a reprieve from her chores. Thomas invites her to sit at their table for breakfast.

She doesn’t comment on her brother’s behavior. Daud doesn’t know if he should push it.

The left side of Lydia’s face is a swollen, black-stitched mess and she winces whenever she smiles, but she’s lucky. Their assailant barely sunk their claws into her.

“I missed the meeting with my sisters,” Lydia says with a sigh, while Daud is nursing his coffee and Thomas and Rose are getting food. “I’m fine with not seeing them, truly, but I do miss my niece. And I was supposed to ask them about the Ashworth siblings.”

“Jerome and I think we have a lead,” Daud says, biting his lip. “We might know someone who works with them.”

“Really? Who?”

“The Chief Alchemist, whoever that is.” Daud tears his heel of bread apart.

“Can’t say I know.”

“We can’t figure it out either. The Dressmaker’s looking into it.”

The kids return at that moment with their plates in hand, and Thomas jumps to pull out the chair for Rose and helps her down.

“I feel very pampered. Having the Emperor mother-hen me.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m pregnant, not infirm.”

“You also have a gaping wound on your leg,” Daud points out.

Thomas playfully smacks her on the arm. “Just calm down and let people take care of you for a few days. We just want you to get better.”

She grumbles a bit under her breath, but begins eating without complaint.

“Anyway, what were we talking about?” Thomas asks, scooting his chair in.

Lydia sets her teacup down. “I was just talking about missing my dress fitting with my sisters. I won’t see them until the ball now.”

“Right. The Masquerade Ball is...soon,” Thomas says, looking at his lap. “You’re still going to it.”

“I must. It wouldn’t be complete, with only two sisters.”

“Hmm. Well, I hope you have fun.” Thomas frowns, digging into his own breakfast.

Daud is half-tempted to kick him and nip this teenage angst-fest before it begins, but the other half of him completely understands why Thomas is bitter. 

Thomas wouldn’t be able to attend this year in any case, due to being presumed kidnapped and the like, as well as being underaged. He would receive an invitation next year, at eighteen-and he still will. But he will be required to decline.

It was a dumb rule, that the Emperor or Empress wasn’t allowed to attend the Boyle Masquerade. After all the fucking bullshit they dealt with for these assholes, they could at least be allowed to party down with the rest of them. But no. There was never even a good reason given-Daud firmly believes the only reason the rule existed was because of Billie.

The annual Boyle Masquerade started during Billie’s father’s rule. Emperor Lurk hadn’t liked parties as a whole, would rather get drunk and miserable by his lonesome, and had declined to attend almost every one he wasn’t hosting. Then Billie took the throne, and the Boyles couldn’t exactly not invite the Empress. The problem being that the Empress was fourteen years old. So Billie received an invitation, but was...strongly encouraged to decline. 

Somehow, it became conflated with the idea that the Empress should  _ never  _ attend.

So year after year, even after turning eighteen, Billie was presented with the very first invitation to the Boyle Masquerade. And year after year, she got a sad look in her eye, and she ordered one of her assistants to pen her decline and send it back with the courier.

Was it a dumb, immature thing to get upset over? Yes, and Billie knew that. Billie did like music; she liked to drink. She did not like people. Billie did not like parties.

But she  _ hated  _ being told she couldn’t go.

Lydia waves her hand. “Oh, I’m dreading it. The last thing I want to do is spend an evening listening to everyone suck the Lady Regent’s metaphorical...ugh, don’t make me say it.”

“There’s no one you’re looking forward to seeing?” Rose asks. “No friends? Not even your sisters?”

“My niece won’t be there, and frankly, I’m enjoying this little break from my sisters.” She absentmindedly dunks a bit of her bread into her tea. “My friends are mostly Esma’s friends. Suffice to say I don’t exactly get along with many of them.”

“So why are they your friends?” Rose stares at her oddly. “Why not hang out with people that you, you know, like?”

“You clearly don’t understand how it works.”

Daud certainly doesn’t. He didn’t play nice with people he loathed. He was civil with them for Billie’s sake, but he certainly wouldn’t be calling them his friends.

Lydia pops the bread into her mouth and chews thoughtfully, then she lights up. “Oh, I know! You should come with me!”

Rose raises both her eyebrows. “Me? To the Boyle Masquerade?”

“Yes! I’m sure I-or Esma-has something you can wear. You’ll be wearing a mask too, so your mother won’t see you!”

“Isn’t there an age limit?”

“Oh, psh.” Lydia waves her hand. “We can pretend you’re eighteen.”

“I don’t know…”

“It’ll be  _ so  _ much more enjoyable if you were there, Rose,” Lydia practically gushes. “We can both wear black, pretend we’re at the funeral for all our bad ideas.”

They both laugh at that, while Thomas continues to eat sourly. Daud side-eyes him, and he at least makes the effort to sit up straighter.

Thomas would never be allowed to go now. It would cause a scandal if the Emperor was caught doing the unthinkable, going to a party he was invited to.

But...he didn’t have to go as himself.

Daud decides that here-in front of Lady Boyle herself-isn’t the best place to tell Thomas that he and Billie had crashed the Boyle Masquerade last year. That they had dressed up in red and black and donned wolf masks, Billie wearing a scarf and gloves to conceal her skin tone and a wig to hide her distinctive hair.

And he should tell him that the party was beyond boring. All small talk they’d heard a thousand times before, with the occasional troll coming out of the woodwork due to the alcohol and the anonymity, but they were usually convinced to move along before anything interesting happened. The food was alright for fancy rich people food, but it was disheartening to see how much they wasted. Billie had said that the wine was decent.

Billie and Daud spent the night whispering to each other and making fun of the other aristocrats, occasionally spilling a drink on someone they didn’t like-on accident, of course-and darting away before they could be caught. They gossiped with the maids a bit, who just seemed happy to be acknowledged. They even danced together, even though Daud hates dancing and Billie had two left feet. But nobody had their eyes on them, so they could muck up their footwork and improvise with silly moves all they wanted. And after Billie had a few glasses of wine in her, she was trudging her feet too much to continue stepping on his.

They had fun, but it was the kind of fun they could have had at any other party. Billie had thanked him for going along with her stupid plan, and said he never needed to accompany her to another Boyle Masquerade because you couldn’t pay her to go again.

Maybe he could risk that again, for Thomas. Show him he’s not missing anything. Next year.

Lizzy shows up to breakfast with a black eye and when Daud catches sight of Edgar across the main hall, he sees purple at his jaw and a swollen lip. Lizzy drags a chair over and pulls Daud’s arm off the table to make room. He declines to comment on the state of her face.

“So are we out about that now?” Lizzy points to Rose’s belly. “Everybody knows?”

Rose finishes chewing and nods. “If they haven’t figured it out by now, I don’t know how to make it any more obvious.”

“You knew?” Lydia raises her brow. Lizzy rolls her eyes and nods.

“Kinda hard to miss when I was undressing her, so Trimblefuck could fix her leg. What did I say to you, Roselia?”

“You asked if this was an ‘I’m a stupid teenager’ sort of situation,” she supplies.

“-Or the ‘Lizzy is going to have to kill a man’ kind, right.” She takes a bite out of her breakfast roll. “My offer on that still stands.”

“Between you, Jerome, and Daud, I think I’m covered, but thanks.” 

“So where did you two go off to yesterday?” Lydia asks politely. “You were gone all day.”

“Oh, you know. Hidden orgy in the sewers. The usual.”

“We were training.” Daud glares at Lizzy. “Sparring, working on our marksmanship. Thought Galia and Paul could get some use out of it.”

“You must have exhausted them. They haven’t even arrived for breakfast.”

Galia usually skipped breakfast anyway, but Paul’s seat next to Thalia is also absent. Though Daud supposes Lydia could be right. The physical exertion aside, their heavy use of his magic so quickly after receiving the Bond could have very well caused them to crash. They’re both probably still sleeping it off.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were another leftie!” Thomas nearly claps in excitement.

“Hmm?” Rose blinks, holding her spoon. “Oh, yeah. A lot of twins are, actually. Like, we’re two or three times more likely to be left-handed than normal.”

“You’re a twin too?” Lydia lights up, but then her face falls. “But where’s your sister?”

“Brother,” Rose corrects. “And he’s fine. We have a meeting place planned for when this all blows over.”

Lydia nods to herself. “That’s good. So are you the older or younger twin?”

Rose preens. “Older.”

“Boo. Esma never lets me forget I’m her ‘baby sister’.” Lydia rolls her eyes. “She’s a rightie too. Traitor.” She looks down at the table again. “I didn’t know that about twins being left-handed, though. I wonder why.”

“Maybe because we’re all possessed by the spirit of the Outsider?” Rose can’t stop her laughter. “I mean, the Abbey’s said that about both multiple births and lefties.”

“Yeah, I had governesses try to tie down my hand to force me to use my right.” Thomas laughs, as if it was a funny memory. “I guess taking a knife to my arm is just the latest in the attempts to cure me of my devil left-handedness.”

“That’s such an outdated concept,” Lydia groans. “My mother apparently had a fit when she first saw me use my left hand to draw, but my father set her straight. He wouldn’t have allowed her, or a governess, to do that.”

“The women who did that were instantly fired,” Daud says, crossing his arms. Without the Emperor’s support, though he doesn’t add that. He was insistent that Thomas learn to write ‘properly’, if he was to be recognized as the brother of the Crown Princess. Billie had trolled him for weeks afterwards, using her left hand for all her tasks until the Emperor took notice. He dropped the argument after that. Daud doesn’t know if the man ever realized that she could use her right hand perfectly well. Billie was ambidextrous.

Rose twists and whispers something into Thomas’s ear, who immediately perks up with an ‘oh!’

“Lady Lydia, would it be alright if we postponed lessons for a half hour or so?” Thomas asks, batting his big eyes. Daud rolls his own.

Lydia finishes chewing before she responds. “I suppose, if you’re willing to work through lunch.”

“That’s fine.” Thomas finishes the last of his breakfast as Rose gets to her feet and starts trying to stack empty plates, which Lizzy practically bats out of her hand. They all stack their own plates in the middle, even Lydia, who looks rather confused at their actions until Daud makes to take hers. She lays her own plate on the top, her cheeks tinged with red, and Thomas helps Rose shuffle away from the table, giggling like idiots.

“They’re fucking adorable,” Lizzy remarks, once they’re out of eyesight. Daud nods without really thinking about it.

“They are awfully cute.” Lydia sighs. “It’s a shame they’ll have to be separated once Lord Thomas is on the throne.”

“What do you mean?” Lizzy stares at her. “Thomas can be friends with whoever he wants.”

“Well, yes, but what will his future wife think?” Lydia waves her hand. “Ladies will already be turned off by a close friendship with another woman…”

“Uh, I don’t think anyone’s going to be turning their noses up at the goddamn Emperor because his best friend’s got a cunt,” Lizzy snorts. “Rose isn’t one to worry about, anyway.”

“Well, still. It would be a scandal he doesn’t need.” Lydia turns to Daud. “Has Thomas started thinking about marriage?”

“He’s seventeen. And he’s not even on the throne yet.”

“I  _ realize  _ that, but it’s important. Not as important as curing the rat plague,” she says quickly. “But especially after the scandal the Empress created when she refused to marry, I’d think it prudent.”

“She didn’t  _ refuse  _ to marry,” Daud says, even though she had. “She was twenty-three years old. Plenty of women aren’t married by then.”

“But she wasn’t a typical woman.” Lydia taps her fingers along the table. “If she-”

“And Billie had  _ plenty  _ of male friends.”

“Yes, and if she lived to have a child, what would the fallout of that be?” Lydia raises an eyebrow at him. “Rumors abound, multiple men with a claim to the heir, how would you even go about establishing paternity?”

Lizzy places her empty drinking glass back onto the table. “Would it even matter who the father of this mythical baby would be? Their mom would be the one with the royal blood. They’d be her heir no matter who shot the lucky load.”

Daud just sits there, wondering whether Lydia is trying to call Billie a slut or not.

“I suppose, but regardless, that’s not the situation anymore.” Lydia folds her hands. “Daud, people will question whether Thomas’s heirs are his, if he does not marry their mother.” 

“The Emperor never married Billie’s mother,” he mumbles, though he knows their situation was special. Billie  _ looked  _ like the old Emperor. Her mother’s coloring, of course, but the Emperor’s features and his brown eyes were almost perfectly replicated in Billie’s face. And in any case, she would have been easily usurped if there were legitimate heirs, siblings or even cousins with more than a whisper of a claim to the throne. Older bastard half-siblings, younger ones if they made a case for themselves. Billie had taken the throne under a series of strange circumstances, and her claim would be flimsy if it wasn’t already the strongest one around.

Lydia stares at him with an expression that indicates she’s thinking the exact thing.

Daud sighs. “Thomas will make the right choice, for himself and his Empire. He just might...take some time realizing that it’s the right thing.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re pulling out his fingernails.” Lydia rolls her eyes. “He’s just picking a wife. He gets along with women fine-shouldn’t be excited?”

At that, Daud laughs. “Doubtful,” he snorts, taking a sip of his water. Seeing the looks on the girls’ faces, he sets the glass back down. “Thomas is gay.”

Lydia blinks. “Oh,” she says, eyes flicking down. “That makes sense…”

“Fuck, Daud, are you a magnet for queers or something?”

At that, Daud has to shrug. “Apparently.”

“How do you know anyway?” Lizzy leans forward. “Because this is the first I’ve heard of it, and I’m usually pretty up on my homoerotic gossip.”

“He told me. Thomas was...twelve, I think.” Daud sips, trying to think back. “Told some of the staff, so there were no rumors, but they weren’t the type to care in the first place. Bi-the Empress never really came out, but I knew anyway. She was always more obvious about it.” Not that she was overt, or that either of them really tried to hide it. They were just...themselves. The only way they ever needed to be.

“Yeah,  _ everyone  _ knew about her.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “But hey, so’s Rose. They can stay BFF’s because there’s no way they’re banging each other.”

“Is he planning to hide it once he’s on the throne?” Lydia stirs her tea. “He can’t exactly marry a man.”

Lizzy plops her face into her hands. “Why not? It’s legal.”

“It’s  _ frowned  _ upon. And what will the Abbey say?”

“They can talk until their stupid masks turn blue. Thomas can do whatever the fuck he wants. Who’s going to tell the Emperor what-no,  _ who  _ to do?”

Even Daud knows they couldn’t get away with that. Thomas might have been able to, as the Empress’s brother, but even then a same-sex marriage would be met with hostility. As the ruler, no. It made Delilah’s fake version of events even more insulting. Billie had known it was better to remain unmarried than marry a woman. No matter how in love she thought she was, she never would have married Delilah.

“Well.” Lydia huffs and puts her teacup back onto the saucer. “There’s still the matter of children.”

“Fuck, why don’t he and Rose just get married for fun?” Lizzy motions behind her, in the vague direction they had gone off in. “They can be each other’s beards.”

“As lovely as she is, she’s not befitting of the station.”

“And what, some drunk-ass bitch just off a boat from Pandyssia was?” Lizzy rolls her eyes, drinking from her flask. “Come on, my idea’s perfect and you both know it.”

“She’s already having a child.” Lydia deadpans.

“Hey, we could pass that off as Thomas’s kid too. See, then they don’t even have to consummate shit. Got your heir, one and done."

Daud shakes his head. “I don’t think we’ll get away with that.”

“Why not? Everyone who’d know otherwise will either be dead or our ally anyway.” Lizzy turns to Daud.

“What if the kid comes out looking like neither of them?”

“Then this is the  _ perfect  _ couple to blame throwback genetics with.” Lizzy knocks back the rest of her drink, looking between the two. “Rosie’s sperm donor is a wildcard, right? Thomas had a dark mom. Daud, your mom was Pandyssian, so it’s just weird luck that you both inherited your dad’s coloring.”

“I don’t have a father,” Daud says tiredly. “And for the last fucking time, Thomas isn’t mine.”

“Sure, Daud. Whatever.” Lizzy bats him away. “My point is, that kid could come out any color and we could just blame it on the grandparents. See? I’m a genius.”

“I don’t think genetics work like that.” Daud makes a face. 

Lizzy just shrugs. “Well, whatever then. I still think Rose-a-rave’s a solid choice.” She sips from her glass thoughtfully. “Maybe they should have their own heir anyway. They’d make some beautiful blue-eyed babies.”

“They do both have very pretty eyes,” Lydia agrees. “I don’t understand why everyone raves about blue, though.”

“Me neither. Personally, I’ve always been a sucker for brown-eyed girls. But I  _ am  _ a huge narcissist.”

Daud’s never understood the whole allure of eye color. Maybe it’s a symptom of his work. You can only hold so many disembodied eyeballs in your hand before that’s all you can think about.

“It’s just a shame he’s not Gristolian,” Lydia sighs.

Daud glares at her. “He is Gristolian. Because he was born in Gristol.” Though Daud doesn’t actually know where Thomas was born. He could have been born in the Void, for all they knew. Blond hair and blue eyes is reminisce of the Morlean upper class, though Thomas lacks the build they’re known for. It was possible Thomas was brought over, even kidnapped like Daud himself was. But there was no way to know now, and Daud had never cared much about his ancestry. Thomas has lived in Dunwall for as long as he can remember. He considered himself a citizen of the city-before becoming heir apparent, that is. As far as Daud’s concerned, that made him Gristolian.

“Well, at least he  _ looks  _ the part.” Lydia waves her hand. “Not to insult the late Empress, but-”

“Boyles, it’s not going in a good direction if you start with that.”

Daud moves to take another drink and his hand closes around air where his glass was. He blinks in confusion.

“I’m not talking about myself,” she huffs. “You can say a number of things about my family, but we aren’t  _ like that.” _

She means it, at least. Her disgust is apparent across her face.

“No, I’m talking about all the lowlifes at the top of the social ladder with nothing better to do than insult the only woman above them in station,” Lydia says cooly. “If I have to listen to another inbred, privileged nobleman complain about a ‘Pandyssian street-waif not fit for cleaning our toilets’,” she rants, using air quotes. “Sitting on the throne, I am not responsible for what I do next.”

“People really said that about her?” Daud doesn’t know why he’s surprised. They’ve had plenty worse things screamed at them, insults hurled like knives as Daud pulled her through crowds, into motorcars, or just during petitioning hours when such hecklers made their way past security.

Lydia nods grimly. “That, and much worse. Half of them would turn and flirt with me in the same breath-like they hadn’t just exposed what vile creatures they were.” She shakes her head. “I feel a bit guilty for being relieved Thomas takes after his father more, but by the Void, if I have to hear that drivel again, I just might…” She pauses, then grabs a knife from their stack of dishes and cutlery. “To paraphrase Elizabeth here, I just might knife a bitch!”

Lizzy bursts into uproarious laughter. There’s a scrape over at the main table as Edgar stands up, a peeved look on his face. “What the hell is so funny over there?” Something vaguely bread-shaped slams into his face.

“Sit down and eat your oatmeal, Wake-dicks.” 

Daud follows Lizzy in laughter as soon the shock wears off. Lydia titters the best she can without moving her face. And they laugh like that, three unlikely friends.

  
  


“Granny?” Daud’s voice seems oddly swallowed up by the room, yet it echoes uncomfortably against his ears. “Granny Rags?”

It occurs to him that he never did find out Granny’s real name. She doesn’t seem to like the nickname very much.

“Dear?”

Granny stands from a couch she’s blended in with so perfectly Daud didn’t even see her. She’s wearing the same coat, same boots and, oddly, a giant red boa.

“Is that my saplings?” Granny asks, mercifully shucking the boa before clucking her tongue. “No, no, you’re the  _ other _ one. The one who’s always so kind to me. Won’t you come in, dear?” She motions, even though Daud is already standing inside her quarters with the door closed behind him. “You had your friend quite worried, last time I saw you.”

Daud hasn’t seen Granny Rags since the shit at Rothwild’s went down, but he’s known she was still around, due to Jerome’s complaining of her nightly walkabouts. He rubs his neck. “I’m doing better now,” he mumbles. “I-Lizzy and I both thank you for your help.”

“Oh, don’t mention all that.” Granny waves. “What’s brought you to me today? Or have you just come to keep an old woman company?”

_ ‘In her mind, she is fresh and young. Wearing a dress of velvet, on her way to an evening of romance.’ _

“I have a few questions,” Daud wets his mouth. “About some drawings I found…”

“Oh, you know my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.”

Granny brushes past him, patting his chest as she goes.

“No, I wouldn’t be able to see, but I’m sure I have some old books somewhere, no good for me…”

Daud taps his foot as he waits, inching away from the rats whenever they get too close. They seem rather docile around Granny, but Daud’s seen too many people devoured alive to feel comfortable around them.

“You should join me and the girlies some night for lessons,” Granny calls back to him. “They’re such good students, my little girls. My husband is quite fond of them. Almost as fond as he is of you.”

_ ‘Three of you watched, the Outsider satisfying curiosity and bestowing His favor. One in the past. One to the future.’ _

“Here, some texts I’ve found over the years.” Granny extracts a few dusty tomes from a chest, stacking them on top of each other. “Written by charlatans, so you’ll find I’ve made my own corrections in some places, back when my eyes were good. I have no use for them now.”

“Thank you.” Daud takes the books, sketchbook clutched between his thumb and the leathery spines, and tries not to cough as he inhales a cloud of dust. “I’ll make good use of them,” he says, and turns to leave.

“Wait!” Granny latches onto him with a strength someone with such snappable arms should not possess. “Don’t go! Let Granny Rags tell you a story!”

Daud halts in his steps, because he may not trust Granny one bit, but his mother told him never to make an enemy of a witch. He’s disobeyed her twice in his life and it’s never worked out well for him.

“Yes, yes, sit down.” Granny roughly shoves into a chair that’s altogether too hard and lumpy in the wrong places. Daud clutches the books to his chest. “I’ll make us some tea. Have ourselves a nice little visit.”

_ ‘I knew her name,’  _ Billie whispers to him, quietly, as if Granny can hear her.  _ ‘I know her. Skirts and jewels and glittering hatpins-what else? I think back and my memories are of smoke and dust.’ _

“Now, which story would you like?” Granny says as she carries the tray over. Daud meekly sets the stack of books off on the closest table that looked least likely to topple over, laying the sketchbook over top. “The story of the plague-bearer and the lady in white? No, no, that’s not it...what about the burned man of the great canyon? No, not right either…”

The teacup is empty. Daud summons up all his decorum and pretends to sip with all the grace of the Empress’s Royal Protector. Though he’s not putting his lips on that cup for anything.

“No, no, you want the tale of Empress Billie Lurk.”

Daud stops short. Puts the teacup back on the table. Granny Rags doesn’t seem to notice.

“Good head on her shoulders. The daughter of an Emperor and a tree-trimmer who thought motherhood a quick ticket to queendom. She saw both sides of society and sought to make it fairer for all.”

Granny Rags sips from her empty cup as if nothing was amiss.

“Then,” she says, placing the cup back on the saucer.  _ “Violently  _ murdered, these seven months ago.”

Daud curls his fingers, trying to bring feeling back into his hands.

“Nothing’s been the same since her death.” Granny shakes her head. “The poor child...her spirit still lives!”

The sudden exclamation makes Daud jerk back.

Granny wags her fingers in that spidery way that makes Daud’s skin crawl. “They hacked at her and pulled her apart. Tore away what should never be separated, and now the splintered pieces of her are trapped. Misused! And for what? Selfish desires, abused to satisfy a greed that knows no end.”

The Talisman has formed in his hands, though Daud doesn’t remember calling for her.

“But you know what the worse part is?” Granny leans in, her milky eyes betraying no emotion. “It was someone she trusted above all others who did the deed! Someone she loved! Betrayed her and threw her own heart in her face!”

Daud’s mouth is dry. He couldn’t move even if he thought to.

“They say they’re in league with the  _ Outsider,  _ and that they won’t rest until everyone in Dunwall is dead!” Granny laughs, choking on her spit. “Dead! Dead and cold!”

She continues to chuckle and cough until the words fade from her lips, her lungs wheezing with misplaced air.

“Now,” she says, her sweet smile back in place. “Granny Rags has told you a story, so you can tell it to someone else later! Change up the ending a bit, if you want, hmm?”

Daud blinks. Stares at her, then gets to his feet.

“Thanks for the tea,” he says, gathering up his books.

Granny’s blind eyes follow him out of her shop with uncanny precision.

 

* * *

 

“Daud?”

Daud stops short, shoving his hands into his pockets as he turns on his heels. Lydia Boyle rises from her seat on the steps, linking her fingers together.

“Lady Lydia,” he says, casting a glance towards Jerome’s shop. He missed lunch then, if she’s done with lessons. Studying Granny’s texts had been more time-consuming than he thought. “Is there something you need?”

She glances towards the ground. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

“Is it something about Thomas?” He can’t imagine she’s having trouble with him. Thomas has always been a model student.

At that, Lydia waves her hands. “No, no, nothing of that sort. It’s a...personal matter. Are you available?”

He was going to go check Jerome’s notes on the dossiers, maybe bug him a bit when he wakes up, but none of that is urgent. He steps towards her. “What’s on your mind?”

Lydia presses her lips together, and her eyes flicker to Daud’s hands. Then she drops her arms to her side and rounds her shoulders. “I want you to train me.”

Daud blinks. “Train you.”

“To fight.” She glances away, but looks back. Meets his eye. “To defend myself.”

Ah.

“You trained the Empress,” Lydia states. “Everyone gossiped about it, but I thought it was great, that you did that for her. She didn’t have to rely on others for everything, I’ve...I’ve always admired that.”

That’s true. He taught Billie to be self-sufficient, that all her guards and fancy security systems and even Daud himself could be defeated. She was her own last line of defense, when all else failed. And then there would be nobody to help her. The only thing between her and the Void was her own hand.

And what good had that done? Even Billie’s prowess was defeated by a hard kick and a well-timed stun. One second, one opening, one stroke through her gut and she was dead.

“Daud?” Lydia peers at him with apprehension in her features. “Will you say something?”

Daud blows out of his mouth. “Is this about the attack a few days ago? Because that wasn’t your fault.”

But Lydia quickly shakes her head. “It’s not just that, I mean, that’s part of it, but…” She stops, closes her eyes. And breathes out.

“When we were ten, Esma and I still shared a room,” she starts. “Our parents employed a small number of officers to guard our home. One night, one of the elite guards used his key to enter our room. He went over to Esma’s bed, and he…” Lydia stares intently at the floor, her mouth moving as if automatically. “He passed me by. He went to her bed and he...he had his way with her.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Daud hears himself say.

But Lydia shakes her head. “I pretended like I was asleep,” she continues, her eyes still on the floor. “Esma tried to keep her crying quiet, so not to wake me, but I was awake. The whole time. I watched it happen.”

She shudders a bit, brings her hand up to cover her mouth. After a moment, she pulls it away again. “Mother...the next day, when we were taking out music lessons, Esma told her what had happened. And our mother tore into her. Accused her of trying to ruin an Abbey-fearing man’s life. Beat her when she wouldn’t take it back.” Lydia shakes her head. “I never stopped playing my harp. Throughout the whole thing. Mother never even asked me for my version of events.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Daud tells her. “She’d already made up her mind not to believe it.”

Lydia laughs hollow-like, and she turns back to Daud. “The thing is,” she says, with tears in her eyes. “After the way she reacted, if she had thought to ask me...I don’t know  _ what  _ I would have said.”

She wipes away her tears with her fingers. “Anyway. The guard was given a new assignment, to protect him from further accusations. So we at least didn’t have to see him again, but…”

“But he must have hurt other people,” Daud finishes for her. “Just like he must have hurt others before your sister.”

There’s plenty of things Daud could say now. Things he wants to say. Just like there were things he wanted to say and do when he realized the truth about what happened to Thomas.

But back then, Thomas didn’t need his anger. And Lydia doesn’t need it now.

“I’ve thought as much.” Lydia kicks a pebble away, watches as it rolls down the hallway. “I don’t remember his name, so I could never check to see if it caught up to him. I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. I had this all planned out.”

Daud pulls her gently under the stairs, away from prying eyes, where she can cry in peace. He hangs back, every so slightly, so he’s just visible if anyone were to walk by-and keeps his hands where she can see them.

Lydia breathes deeply, swiping the back of her hand over her eyes. “Rose has been such a good friend to me here,” she starts up again. “I know it’s not appropriate, with women of our stations, but it’s like that doesn’t exist with her. Both her and Jerome, really. They’ll laugh and tease me like we’re on the same level, then they’re so patient with me when I don’t know how to do something. I’ve never experienced something like that before.”

She blinks rapidly, folding her hands into her lap. “Rose is nearly half my age and with child, yet when I was attacked, she didn’t hesitate to risk her life to help me. Threw her shoe and screamed to leave me alone...I couldn’t do anything. All I had was a scratch on my face and I was absolutely paralyzed.”

“It was a bit more than a scratch…” Daud mumbles. 

Lydia doesn’t slow down. “I could barely watch as they turned on her. I didn’t know how I’d live with myself if she lost the baby, or died herself. While I did nothing to help her. I was useless. And she kept fighting even with their claws deep in her leg. Pulled something out of her coat and smashed it on the ground. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I wouldn’t have thought of it. But she knew it would make them flee. Somehow, in the midst of everything.”

Lydia rounds up, stares at him with newborn intensity. “That’s why I want you to teach me everything you know,” she says in a hurry. “I won’t be useless like that again. I want to be able to rely on myself instead of counting on others for everything.”

“Teaching you ‘everything I know’ would take years,” Daud says. And most of it would be useless to her, unless she was planning on becoming a cat burglar. “But I can get you started.”

And Lydia smiles, the best she can without aggravating her stitches.

Daud glances up to the skylight. “Looks like it’s going to rain,” he says. “So let’s start in here.”

“Now?” Lydia blinks. “We’ll have our first lesson right now?”

“Might as well. Did you want to change? You’ll want to wear something easy to move in. That you don’t mind getting ruined.”

“Oh.” Lydia looks down. She’s not wearing any jewels, typical for her, but her blouse could easily cost Daud’s monthly salary. Her pants were probably expensive too. But she just undoes the top button on her blouse, rolls the sleeves up. “I’m ready.”

Daud takes her down the hallway, where there’s open space for them to move. Lydia looks around, confused. “Aren’t we going to use swords?”

“No.” Despite his efforts, Daud laughs a bit. “No. You are not ready for that.” He doesn’t have a spare sword anyway-not with Thomas hiding one of his. “I told you, we’re starting with the basics.”

“Yeah, but…” she looks down. “A sword would help more.”

“Then you’re becoming dependant on a weapon instead of another person,” Daud tells her. “Likely, you’re not going to use what I teach you in the same setting I use it. Where are you most likely to be attacked?”

“Outside,” she says, her face screwing up in concentration. “But it’ll be safer once the plague...at social events, I suppose. I’ve been cornered before, but I’ve always managed to slip away.”

“And that should be your goal. Situations like that, you want to get away. Get help, if you can, but separating yourself from the danger is your first priority.” He guides her by the shoulders to stand directly across from him.

“But what if there’s no one around to help?” She sputters. “What if I want to take care of it on my own?”

“We’ll get to that.” 

“It would be easier if I was armed. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about summoning help.”

Daud presses his lips together, then he takes his back-up switchblade out of his pocket, hands it to her. Hopes she doesn’t tell Thomas he has it.

“What is…” Lydia stares at it oddly until Daud leans forward and presses the button that releases the blade. She jumps back when it springs forward. “Oh.”

“You have a weapon,” he says. “I’m unarmed. Try to kill me with it.”

“What?” Her eyes flick up to him. “Daud, I don’t want to hurt you…”

“Really? Because I do.”

Before she can say anything else, Daud wraps his hand around her wrist and twists. The blade clatters to the ground, and Lydia turns to alleviate the pain. Daud grabs her other shoulder and kicks out one of her knees, forcing her to the ground. Hand off her shoulder, move to the back of the head, force it down to the floor.

“So this is two lessons,” he grunts, holding her down. “One, it didn’t fucking matter that you had a weapon, because I knew how to get it out of your hands and you didn’t know where to go from there. You have to keep your cool, and roll with the punches. Two.” He moves off her and offers a hand up, which she takes with a blush at her cheeks. “You can’t wimp out on hurting people. If you can deal with someone without killing them, great, but that’s not your priority. Your priority is your own safety.” He grabs her by the shoulders and stares into her glassy green eyes. “You don’t care if it’s me. You don’t care if it’s your husband or your cousin or your best friend. If someone is attacking you, you do whatever it takes to walk away with your life.”

“I get it,” she says softly.

Daud bends and picks up the switchblade. “I’ll teach you how to use this,” he says, folding the blade back. “I’ll teach you how to swing a sword and shoot a gun, if you want. But you’re not always going to have a weapon on you. If you can take someone down with your bare hands, you’ll be that much harder to catch off-guard.”

“Is this how you trained the Empress?” She smirks. “No wonder she had such a reputation for being a firecracker. She broke my nephew’s nose a month before her death-fully deserved, of course. He tried putting his hands on her.”

He has to chuckle at that. Sounds like his Billie. He was more than happy to tackle creeps for her, but he’d always known she was more than capable of handling them herself.

“Well, we went through this part when we were on the streets,” he says. “So it went a bit differently.” Mostly in that he’d trained Billie to be an instigator instead of just a defendant. Kids like her didn’t get very far without being able to win a few street fights, and she would have gotten herself involved in them anyway. Might as well make sure she didn’t lose. “But the same basics apply. She wasn’t allowed to carry weapons, so she was limited to her hands.”

Daud stands square with her, shoulders even with each other.

“Eyes, nose, throat, groin, and knees. Those are the spots you’re going to want to go after,” he states, pointing to each area in succession. “So if I grab you like this, this is how you’re going to respond…”

 

* * *

 

Daud hunkers down behind the statue in the Empress’s throne room. On most days at this time, the lights would be on and there’d be a line of petitioners stretching out into the hallway, out the doors sometimes. And Daud would be standing behind his Empress, seated on her throne, watching dutifully for a threat to present itself. But not today.

Today is Billie’s sixteenth birthday.

Regular functions were suspended, in preparations for the celebration that would occur later tonight. Billie was supposedly getting her hair and make-up done, taking intermittent breaks for tea with acquaintances trying to suck up to her, but he knows she’s probably off hiding from her maids and advisors. Trying to get things done. That’s his Billie. No time for her birthday when she has an Empire to fix.

So the throne room is dark, barely enough light to see by, the throne itself unoccupied. Deserted. Aside from Daud.

And the four thugs he hired to kidnap Billie, but they didn’t know he was here.

She’d be here soon. Daud had a message sent to her telling her to meet him in the throne room for her present-already, she should be suspicious. Daud didn’t make a show of giving presents. He had already left hers in her room while she slept.

But though Billie’s smart, she’s also a teenager. Hormonal and very sure of herself. She’ll come, even if her gut tells her not to, because teenagers all think they’re invincible. And even though Daud stole all her holdout weapons out of her room, so she’s walking around her palace unarmed.

He supposes she  _ could  _ go down to the armory and requisition some weapons-though he did tell the fucks manning it today not to provide to the Empress, and they hadn’t questioned it due to his murder face, but Billie could also be very scary when angered. And she could probably sneak in and take what she wanted anyway. ‘Lurk’ was a hilariously befitting name for her, one he’d find more humor in if it didn’t come with this job.

No matter. If Billie’s managed to arm herself, he’ll find another place to have her ambushed.

The double doors open, and he sees the shadowy outlines of the thugs get into position. The Empress steps inside, puffed white blouse and her hair in a curly bob. She’s probably overjoyed that skirts are so out of fashion by now that she’s been allowed to wear pants to her own birthday party. Daud is relieved as well. He could go without seeing a panty shot today.

Billie pauses, eyes flicking around the room, and stiffens when she hears the doors swiftly close behind her. And lock, just as he paid the doormen to do.

She knows what’s coming. Daud leans in closer.

One of the thugs steps up behind her, hands poised to grab her by the shoulders. Billie waits, listens. Then at the last moment, she whirls around and plants her fist in the man’s stomach.

His lungs audibly deplate of air, and Billie takes advantage of the moment to slam her knee into his groin. Then she hits the man with the heel of her palm directly in the solar plexus, sending him sprawling backwards into his friend, who was coming up behind to assist. Both men tumble to the floor.

She turns. No weapons-good. She’ll have to do this bare-handed. The thugs are armed with stun-batons, but they won’t use them until she’s already beaten. They were instructed to make it hurt. Which Daud really shouldn’t have done-it gave her time to work them over, yes, time she wouldn’t have if they were real assassins. She should be capable of avoiding the sparky end, because she’d be toast if it were a blade. If she fails this time, he’ll tell the next group not to hold back. Teach her a lesson.

The other two thugs round on her. She fakes to one side, runs and ducks between them, sliding on her heels. Their arms rush to grab her and meet air.

Then Billie does a stupid thing. She stops, turns to face the thugs, and punches one in the face.

The thug staggers, but doesn’t go down, and his friend catches Billie’s fist as she brings it around to hit him. Twists, pulls her in and turns her around, grabs her other elbow. Then releases her hand and slides his arm under her armpit. The punched thug makes a fist and reciprocates, driving his knuckles into her nose.

Daud grimaces as he hears it crack.

Billie doesn’t give them time to hit her again. She drops, forcing the man holding her to double over to keep his hold, and she manages to get one arm free in the process. Hooks her foot on the backside of the other man’s knee. One pull and he falls. Billie tucks her leg back under her and grabs her captor by the forearm. Lifts her body, pulls his arm, and rolls the man over her shoulder.

He slaps against the floor. Billie delivers a swift kick to the side of his head to properly concuss him.

The other two have gotten to their feet by now, the third just starting to gather his bearings. Daud doesn’t know if they’ll try and stun her-they have to realize by now that they are not dealing with a pampered noblewoman. That Billie isn’t the helpless Empress they thought she was.

Fortunately, and because Daud didn’t pick these guys for their intelligence, they still seem to think they can subdue her without stunners.

 One punches out. She ducks. Doesn’t go for the hit to his stomach-smart, the other thug is right behind her. She side-steps his outstretched hands and backs away. 

Then the first thug drops his fists and bum-rushes her. Billie digs in, stands her ground, but even with her latest growth spurt the thug still has a good sixty pounds on her. Billie is knocked right off her feet. She should have dodged. He’ll have to take points off for that.

A boot slamming down on her stomach, another driven into her side. Billie wheezes, trying to regain her breath. The third thug has gotten to his feet by now and is approaching the apparent blanket party taking place. One thug at her legs, one foot between her splayed legs. The one closer to her upper body takes a half step back to bring out his stunner and activate it.

That half step away is all Billie needs.

The thug poised over her raises his knee for another stomp. Billie kicks the man’s single leg out from under him and grabs his head as he falls, slamming it against her knee in one smooth motion.

She flips him over so the thug’s body trips up his friends as she scrambles to her feet. Daud has to give her a nod of appreciation. He didn’t expect her to recover from getting knocked flat on her back like that.

One thug jumps over his friend’s body, a hesitation in the knee she kicked out. The thug with the stunner rounds closer. Billie dances between the two, dodging blows but not reciprocating. Then the stun-thug goes in for a stab, which Billie deflects by literally just pushing his wrist away, winding her arm around his until her fist is underneath his elbow.  Daud hears a crack. And the thug’s arm bends in a way it is most definitely not supposed to, allowing Billie to shove his arm down and force him to taze himself in what looks like the nutsack. 

Well, bonus for creativity. Though it makes Daud physically cringe.

That’s three thugs incapacitated, moaning on the floor in various states of consciousness. The fourth is still poised like a cat ready to pounce, but he has to know it’s over. Billie has already beaten him.

Sure enough, Billie comes at him before he has a chance to activate the stunner in his hand. He automatically brings it up to strike her with, despite it not being electrified, and Billie diverts his blow and uses her other hand to throat-chop him. The stunner clatters to the floor, Billie turning the thug around and catching him in a Tyvian chokehold. Her grip relaxes, her hands on his shoulders just long enough to push him to the floor. Then she plants her boot right in the juncture beside his shoulder blade, and the thug’s head clunks against the hardwood floor.

Then she stands there. Huffs. Gazes over the stunned and likely concussed men as if deciding what the hell to do with them.

Daud figures she might actually kill him if he does his slow clap, so he just shifts off to the side and reaches for the light switch.

Billie jumps as the room is illuminated, and Daud gently smoothes the tapestry back down.

“I’m impressed,” he says with a straight face. “Really. I’m amazed, actually.”

“Daud.” She glares at him, blood dripping from one nostril. “Would you care to explain how my Royal Protector allowed a group of assassins to not only breach our home, but my  _ throne room?!” _

The exclamation makes her grimace and sends her hand to her nose, touching it delicately. Daud sidesteps her and knocks on the door, once and then twice. The doormen throw them open, as agreed earlier, and pay no attention to the bleeding Empress. Daud wordlessly extracts his pocket square and hands it to her, which she immediately presses against her nose. Daud leaves her be while he directs the Watch officers that have flooded into the throne room and are making their arrests-these men  _ did  _ take a contract to kidnap the Empress, after all. 

Billie is seated on the steps of the dais that holds her throne by the time he turns around, head tilted back as she holds the bloody handkerchief over her nose. The ruby-studded throne waits open for her, padded seat and backrest that she’d surely be more comfortable in, but she makes no move towards it. Daud knows she doesn’t prefer to sit on her throne. 

“Don’t hold your head back like that,” Daud says as he walks back to her. “You’re supposed to let it drain.”

“And let it ruin my nice party clothes?”

There’s a visible bootprint at the stomach of her shirt, and blood already smattered over the ruffles. Hers or the thug’s, he doesn’t know. A tear at the left shoulder. The shirt’s unsalvageable. For what she pays for her clothes, they should be a little more resilient, but Billie’s luxurious silks and satins seem far more fragile than clothing picked out of the trash, mended a dozen times over with Daud’s shitty needlework. 

“Be more grateful.” Daud stops short of the steps, staring down at her. “You’re alive.”

Billie groans, rubbing her neck. “Barely.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” He rolls his eyes.

“I think my nose is broken.”

“Probably.” It is. “They did pretty well then, I suppose.”

“They did…” Billie’s eyes slide over to him, blinking. Then the anger.  _ “You  _ sent them?!”

“The office of the Royal Protector cannot confirm or deny those rumors.”

“Outsider damn…” She jumps to her feet then, checking to ensure her guards have all departed, steps forward and plants her fist right in his gut.  _ “Fuck  _ you, Daud!”

Daud wheezes, bent over at the waist. She’s either not nearly as mad as he thought she’d be, or she’s so tired she can’t punch with her full strength.

“I should have you thrown from the top of Dunwall Tower!” She yells, and more blood drips onto the floor. She quickly shoves the handkerchief back to her face. “Care to explain why my Royal Protector is sending assassins after me? Goddammit, Daud. I could have been killed!”

“No, you couldn’t have.” Daud draws himself up. “I was watching the entire time.”

Billie glares at him with an intensity that makes him shift on his feet.

“I didn’t hire them to kill you, Billie. Just kidnap you. Rough you up a bit.”

_ “Just.” _

“If you failed, they’d have just taken you to the docks for transfer,” Daud continues. “Naturally, I’d be there to collect you. But thank you for making that part of the plan obsolete. I wasn’t looking forward to going out in this cold.”

“I am going to order you to jump into the Wrenhaven and freeze outside until your dick falls off.”

“I’m trembling at your might, oh Empress.”

“Outsider’s...balls, is this why I couldn’t find my pistol this morning?” Billie says in a nasally voice. “This is why Rinaldo got sent out on a goddamn scavenger hunt! Dammit, we were going to jack a boat and eat breakfast out on the water.”

Daud waves his hand. “You can do that tomorrow. He thinks he’s buying you presents, so don’t take it out on him. Also you have more presents coming; don’t be sour.”

“Oh yes, a new fur coat will make me forget all about my Protector arranging a fucking assassination attempt on me.” Billie kicks the floor. “Where did you even find idiots thick enough to take a contract to abduct me? From my own Protector?”

“Spymaster Martin arranged it.” Daud waves his hand. “He was rather amused when he heard what I wanted to do.”

“And what,” Billie says into the handkerchief. “Pray tell, was that.”

“To see if you could stand your own.”

It may just be his imagination, but he thinks Billie stands up a little straighter.

“And I did.”

“You did.” Daud nods. “So that punch?” he motions. “Sloppy. Unnecessary energy expended, and it left you open to counter-attack.”

“I think I already learned my lesson there,” Billie mumbles.

“You stood your ground when your opponent had the physical advantage, when you should have either turned his weight against him or avoided him altogether. And that move with the stunner was risky. It could have come down on you just as easily as you brought it down on him, and then you’d be out for the count.”

“Not like I had much of a choice,” Billie shoots back.

“You always have a choice,” Daud says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “But the rest of it? Flawless. A display like that would put the fear of the Outsider into any assassin.”

“But not my own bodyguard, apparently.” But he can tell Billie’s pleased with herself. As she should be.

“I did it for your own good.”

“And for your own good, you better sleep with one eye open for the next month.”

“Fair enough.” Daud turns and pulls her towards the doors. “Let’s get you to Montgomery. Then I think you’ve earned a hot bath and a quiet night.”

“What about my birthday guests?” Billie laughs uncomfortably. “Was this all a ploy to get me out of my party?”

“Let’s say yes. Thomas will entertain your guests. They’ll be  _ more  _ than understanding that you couldn’t attend, as you’re currently recovering from an attempt on your life.”

Billie rolls her eyes. “This doesn’t make up for my broken nose and ruining my shirt. I still don’t forgive you.”

“What if I bring you birthday cake?”

“Hmm.” Billie considers. “Maybe. If you bring me a piece with a frosting flower.”

“I think I can manage that,” Daud laughs, ruffling her hair. “You did very well. I’m proud of you.”

“Fuck you, Daud.”

Stopping short, he checks to make sure no guards are around. Then he pulls Billie in and, ignoring her eye rolling, presses his lips to her temple. “Happy birthday, Majesty.”

 

* * *

 

“I found violets at my window this morning.”

Daud stops and looks up at Galia with the most neutral face he can muster. “And?”

She huffs, uncrossing her arms. “Well, you two are the only guys here who might have left me flowers…”

“Nope, Fleets, sorry. You’re not my type.” Paul slurps up more of his soup.

“I didn’t think it was like  _ that,”  _ she grumbles. “Just thought you might have been feeling gentleman-like…”

Paul interrupts her with a burst of laughter.

“Sorry, Galia, but neither of us left you flowers,” Daud says as soon as he’s no longer in danger of laughing himself.

“Well, who did then?!”

“What are we talking about?” Thomas turns around in his seat.

“Somebody gave Gails violets and she’s getting her panties in a knot about it.”

“Oh, Reed was picking those earlier this week,” Thomas supplies, then turns to Rose on his other side. “Looks like your brother has his first crush!”

Rose snorts. “Doubt it. I don’t think Reed knows there’s a difference between girls and boys. But anyway, violets are the lesbian flower. So maybe try Lizzy.”

Galia’s nose wrinkles. “Ew.”

“Or Lydia!” Paul supplies, raising his glass. “You ladies have a plethora of options available here. The same cannot be said for me.”

“Oh, you poor soul.” Rose rolls her eyes and pushes away from the table. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

“Don’t stress yourself too much,” Thomas calls after her, prompting Rose to wave him away.

“Have you seen Ricardo baby me? I’ll be fine. Quit worrying.”

It’s in Thomas’s nature to worry, so Daud doesn’t have high hopes.

Speaking of the devil, Lizzy takes that moment to appear and slides into her usual spot next to Daud. Edgar also shuffles in, though he does so with considerably less commotion.

“Kay, we’re here.” Lizzy leans back, arms crossed over her chest. “What’s this meeting you called about, Fleet?”

Galia rolls her eyes. “I need to discuss something with Jerome before we start. Excuse me.”

“It must be a pretty big deal,” Paul says after Galia’s left the table, leaning in. “Thalia had me go get  _ Trimble  _ for it. You know the man never leaves the lion’s den.”

He does more so now that Thomas is here, Daud thinks. It’s all about attracting the Emperor’s attention. He has no doubt Trimble gets informed of their proceedings in some other way.

“So why aren’t you over there telling him about the meeting?” Lizzy drops her chin in her hands.

“Because I don’t fucking want him here!”

_ ‘He’s hiding things,’  _ Billie says, making Daud perk up.  _ ‘But it is beyond my abilities to reveal them. He may tell you in time.’ _

“So what are you going to tell Lady Timsh, when she arrives?” Thomas motions to her empty seat.

Paul shrugs. “That he’s taking a nap, I dunno. I’ll deal with the fallout when it comes. Just be glad we don’t have to look at his face.”

“Speaking of people we’d rather not talk to,” Lizzy says. “Has anyone seen Zhukov? In like, days?” 

Everyone shakes their head. She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “If he got himself captured again, I am  _ not  _ going out to save his ass.”

“You didn’t rescue him last time, Stride. I did.”

“Oh, so now it’s a turn thing?”

“Yes!” Thomas stands up to be seen over Daud’s head. “So when I get kidnapped again, it’s your turn to save me!”

Lizzy stares him down. “Kid, if you get kidnapped again, I will burn this entire fucking city down.”

_ ‘Not enough blood on her blade. She longs to feel another heart still beneath her fingers, see their eyes go blank. Never too many dead witches, that’s what she thinks.’ _

Paul is quick to detract. “He’s been gone. Completely. I’ve been visiting Galia’s room to, uh,  _ practice  _ some of the moves you taught us, Daud-” His eyes slide over. “-and he’s never been there.”

“Would he be, though? I mean, does the fucker even sleep?”

I’ll go ask Rose,” Daud says quickly, standing up. “She usually knows what’s up, and Zhukov likes her.” Why, he has no idea. Zhukov also likes Granny Rags, so it might be a witch thing, but he doesn’t seem too fond of Reed or Jerome, who both dabble in magic, or Daud himself. So Zhukov is, as always, a complete fucking mystery.

Rose is seated on a high stool as she works, cutting something green. Daud taps the counter so she’s alerted to his presence without being startled.

“Hey, you. What’s up?” She smiles at him, genuine.

_ ‘She loves snow, but loathes the cold,’  _ Billie giggles.  _ ‘Yet she sees images of Tyvia and feels a longing within her, this place she’s never seen. Like the snowy mountainsides are where she truly belongs.’ _

Now, why couldn’t Billie tell him more things like that? That’s a happy secret. He liked hearing about it. She was amused by it-in a good way.

And, fuck, Daud can do something with that information. He’s only been to Tyvia a handful of times, but he thought the land was beautiful, and he’s sure to have to accompany Thomas there again at some point. He’ll have to bring her along.

“We were wondering where Zhukov ran off to this time.”

At that, Rose rolls her eyes and shifts in her seat. “Oh, him? He went on another one of his supply runs.”

“Supply run?”

“Yeah, he up and leaves in the middle of the night and is gone for days.” She shrugs. “Always tells me, for some reason. Ever woken up to a six-foot man decked out in black looming over your bed?”

“But what is he getting?”

“Fuck if I know. I-” 

She stops short as a salt shaker bounces off the side of her head.

_ “Lingua!”  _ Ricardo yells, extending his fingers and wagging them. Rose tosses the shaker back and he proceeds to salt whatever he has simmering in his pot.

“By the Void, Ricky, people can curse.”

_ “Bambina! _ You are small child!  _ Tieni la lingua!” _

Rose scoffs and turns away. “Whatever. You’re not my dad.”

A shadow falls across Ricardo’s face, and Daud almost feels bad. He’s had this exact conversation with Billie before, except Daud never bothered with censoring her speech.

“But anyway, yeah, I have no idea where he is,” Rose tells him. “He said he’d be gone for a few days though, so rejoice.”

She moves to jump down from the stool and Ricardo is behind her, his hands poised to steady her. Careful, as if she’ll break, and even though she rolls her eyes Rose allows him to do it. Beneath his mustache, Ricardo is almost smiling.

_ ‘He is one of the immune. He had to accept it after holding her body for four days, and the sickness still hadn’t taken.’  _ Billie’s voice is grim.  _ ‘If he survives to see the end of the plague, Ricardo plans to climb to the top of Kaldwin’s Bridge and throw himself off.’ _

“Fuck, Billie, can we stay on a positive note?” Daud groans as he returns to the main hall.

“So where is he?” Lizzy asks as he approaches. Daud throws up his hands.

“I don’t know, off being weird. He’s gone.”

“Ugh, just don’t ask Gails about it,” Paul groans. “She gets, like,  _ weird  _ about him. Just don’t mention anything to her, she’ll be easier to deal with.”

“Also, hey, why are you on Zhukov’s ass for being gone?” Lizzy leans closer to Paul. “You fuck off all the time without telling anyone where you’re going.”

“It’s embarrassing, Lizzy.”

“Oooh, tell me.”

“I bird-watch.” Paul smiles. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“Wait, like the real birds, or the Granny Rags-style birds?”

Daud waves over the Dressmaker over, who looks confused until Daud leans in and whispers to him. “Did you hear back from your niece yet?”

“Oh.” His eyebrows raise, then droop back down. “N-no, unfortunately.” He wrings his hands. “I fear my letter was intercepted yet again.”

Perfect. Well, that couldn’t be what this meeting was about, then. What the hell had Galia found?

Galia returns to the hall followed by a very sullen looking Jerome, who slouches into his seat and doesn’t respond to Lizzy’s teasing jabs. Daud watches him out of the corner of his eye, how he shoves his elbows on the table and buries his face in his arms.

“So the other day,” Galia leads in, taking Zhukov’s spot at the head of the table. “Daud informed Jerome and myself about a second person the witch Gardenia was in contact with. The Chief Alchemist.”

“What?” Thalia Timsh puts down her teacup. “Daud? Why weren’t we informed of this?”

Daud rolls his eyes. “Are you in charge of intel? No. I told who was relevant.”

“Yeah, but you still need to tell us,” Edgar grunts, folding his arms. “We’re in charge here!”

_ ‘The seeds have been sown,’  _ Billie whispers in his ear.  _ ‘They’ve taken root. And you tend to them, water them with blood.’ _

Lizzy stands and points over Daud’s head. “Actually, he’s in charge. This kid over here with the crown? Hello?”

Thalia stares at her with a pinched expression. “You know well what we meant, Elizabeth.”

“No, explain it to me. Please.”

“I will not, there are infinitely more important matters to give attention to. Matters Daud should have presented to us as a team, including Mister Wakefield and myself. And where is Doctor Trimble?”

“So the Chief Alchemist.” Galia stares the table down, daggers in her blue eyes. Daud nearly shivers in spite of himself. He’s never seen Galia like this. “I’ve had my spies looking into it, and you’ll be glad to know I have a name. A full one, at that.”

“Their real name?” Daud leans forward. “No codenames, no tricks? We know who they are?”

Galia nods solemnly. “The Chief Alchemist is a student at the Academy. A woman, by the name of Alexandria Hypatia.”

There’s a choking sound. And the Dressmaker drops his teacup, coughing and sputtering until Lydia slaps him on the back.

“That’s…” He chokes, coughing once more to clear his throat. “That’s my niece!”

The only sound at the table is a non-committal grunt by Lizzy as she sips from her cup. “Your family doesn’t do things by halves, do they? You’re all a bunch of fucking weird-ass savants.”

“She’s still a student!” he shrieks. “Shouldn’t the professors be handling those jobs? She’s only twenty-five, how can she be Chief Alchemist?!”

“They must have had reason.” Thomas tries to smile.

The Dressmaker picks up his dropped jaw and nods to himself. “Yes, yes, I always knew she was brilliant. A prodigy in many ways-she learned how to read when she was two, if you can believe that.”

“I can. Esma was three. She’d pull down books from our father’s study and read them aloud to me.”

“But if she’s the Chief Alchemist…” The Dressmaker stares at his palm. “Then she’s been associating with witches...with the Regent directly…”

Galia nods. “She’s apparently quite important to Kaldwin. She’s allocated an entire platoon of Watch officers to guard her night and day.”

“She’s in danger!” The Dressmaker tugs on his shirt collar. “From people like us, or...if she displeases the Regent...”

“Calm your balls, my dude.” Lizzy at least tries to hide her eyeroll. “We’re not gonna hurt your girl.”

_ ‘Unless she’s been corrupted as well. Then we will tear her open and let her blood purify us.’  _ Billie’s voice is like a starving wolfhound’s in the moments before receiving a steak.

The Dressmaker puts his head in his hands. “Oh, Alex, where are you? What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Wouldn’t she be at the Academy?” Thomas asks, tilting his head. “That would be the most logical place to research a cure…”

Daud remembers that Thomas wanted to gather the doctors and alchemists at Dunwall Tower, let them exchange ideas and work freely on the cure. The Academy had closed doors. The Crown could have provided more resources, better equipment.

But the Dressmaker just shakes his head. “I’ve been turned away every time I’ve gone looking for her, told she’s living off-campus but never telling me where. I...have no idea where Alex is.”

“I do.”

Everyone turns their attention back to Galia, standing straight with her shoulders back.

She looks down her nose at the Dressmaker. “I had one of my spies tail the courier you paid to deliver her letter.”

“But it never reached her-”

“No, because I had it intercepted.” She says it like she was mentioning what she made for dinner.

The Dressmaker sputters. “You...you kept my letter for her?!”

“We couldn’t have it blowing our cover. Really, you should think about things like this. Fallen into the wrong hands, it could have put us  _ all  _ in danger.”

“I didn’t write anything incriminating…” he mumbles, leaning back in his chair. “All I said was-”

“I don’t care what you think you said!” Galia slaps the table so hard it shakes. “Things like the district you’re living in is confidential information!”

“I lived here before-”

“And she could have very well tipped Delilah off that we were looking for the Chief Alchemist! What then? We’d be fucked, that’s what.”

“Alex wouldn’t give us up like that.” The Dressmaker shakes his head. “I don’t know why she’s working for the Lady Regent, but she...she wouldn’t.” He looks down at his lap. “I’m her only family. She wouldn’t betray me like that.”

_‘How does a heart so laden with sorrow continue beating?’_ Billie muses. Daud holds the Talisman tighter and wonders the same.

Lizzy raises her hand. “So wait, Dressers sent that out last week. How did you know it was Hypatia then?”

“I didn’t.” Galia’s face goes blank. “I, uh, actually just had her smoked out in case we needed to use her. If I couldn’t find out who the Chief Alchemist is, we could have interrogated Alexandria.” She shrugs. “But it worked out great because the next part of the equation was finding out where the Chief Alchemist  _ is.” _

“Where is she?” The Dressmaker leans forward, chewing on a nail.

“You won’t believe this. They have her working out of Anton Sokolov’s old lab, on Kaldwin’s Bridge.”

Wasn’t that poetic.

“Well, guess that’s another notch in the ‘Sokolov is fucking dead’ belt.” Lizzy takes a drink. “Kaldwin either had him killed or he died in her custody. How else would she justify using his apartment?”

“The city can seize properties for the most inane of reasons now,” Thalia says dryly. “Why do you think I’ve had to appear in public since my uncle’s death? If I were presumed missing, our assets could be considered forfeit.”

“That’s dumb shit, ‘Imsh. And if Sokolov’s not dead, he’s gonna be right pissed when he comes back and finds his apartment has been taken over by Watch dickbags and nerds.”

“So I suppose Lizzy and I are paying Kaldwin’s Bridge a visit?” Daud asks. Galia nods, her eyes trained downwards as she leafs through her papers.

“Yes. She’s been conducting research there. She also has an assistant-a relatively fresh student, by the name of Bartholomeus Vasco. He’s only eighteen, but he’s apparently brilliant or something.”

“Would have to be sharp, to keep up with her…” The Dressmaker shakes his head.

Galia turns back to Daud. “If Hypatia proves unwilling to cooperate, you may want to consider talking to him. He’ll certainly know things, and he might be easier to persuade.”

“You mean easier to intimidate.” Daud stares her down.

Jerome sighs and stands up, the first move he’s made since the meeting started. “Good thing I just finished fixing Daud’s coat. Come on, Daud, let’s make sure it fits properly before you leave.”

“We’re not leaving yet!” Lizzy practically shrieks. “Lunch first! Whatever Rick-man is cooking up in there smells fucking amazing.”

“I’m not hungry.” Daud tousles her hair as he walks by, prompting a smack to his arm.

“Wait!” The Dressmaker practically trips over his chair getting up. Out of the corner of his eye, Daud sees Thomas lean over and whisper something to Lizzy, who then nods solemnly.

“Don’t worry, kid. I’ll take care of him,” she says in a low voice.

“Daud.” The Dressmaker is out of breath, grabbing Daud’s hands in his and squeezing. Over his shoulder, Daud sees Jerome hurrying away without looking back. “Daud, I don’t know what Alex has gotten herself into, but this is  _ not  _ like her, believe me.” He presses his lips together, and his eyes shimmer. “You have to bring her back with you.”

“We can’t be taking in a new person every other week.” Thalia glares from the table. “It’s hard enough maintaining a low profile as it is.”

The Dressmaker ignores her. “Please. She’ll be safe with me, and I can get her to come clean about whatever it is she’s doing. Just please, don’t let any harm come to her.”

“I won’t.” And Daud lets his hands squeeze back. “I’ll bring her back.”

“Promise me.” The Dressmaker’s face is set, as stony and serious as Daud’s ever seen it. “Please.”

“I swear on the Empress’s grave that I will bring your niece back, safe and sound.”

The Dressmaker wasn’t expecting that. Truthfully, Daud hadn’t either.

But then there’s relief, spreading over the Dressmaker’s face as his stony facade crumbles. A tear runs down his cheek. And he throws his arms around Daud’s shoulders. 

_ “Thank  _ you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, this chapter was actually a sane length until I was like, "you know what this needs? Flashbacks." I really should just put all the flashback scenes in a separate story, as I do have a number of other backstory scenes that I've written that will not make it into the actual story, but...eh.
> 
> I'll be honest, I half gave Rose the injury I did so I had an excuse to put her in a dress. Because I always imagine her wearing dresses and skirts, and then I remember that those aren't really things in the DH universe and I get sad. (don't get me wrong, I love the feminist aspect of it, but I do love playing Character Dress Up) I imagine Rose dresses like a boho-hipster and wears pink ironically. If she was modern she'd totally be having a punk phase. I think Thomas would have had a scene kid phase, so now I'm imagining them in some shitty high school AU where Thomas broke his arm trying to ride a skateboard.
> 
> Kaldwin's Bridge is still Kaldwin's Bridge because I said so. Euhorn Kaldwin is still a rich government official here so he still commissioned the place. Also 'Lurk Bridge' sounded dumb. I honestly cringe every time I type out 'Empress Billie Lurk' because it is the least regal name in the history of the Empire. I did consider making her 'Empress Foster' and saying Meagan was her royal name or something, because you know her dad pressured her to change it to something more feminine.
> 
> This story would be so much shorter if I left out all the jokes and memes, honestly. Like, do we really need a page and a half description of Billie's coronation gown? Probably not, but you never know. I'm a butch lesbian who enjoys writing about pretty things; this is where I get my haute couture fix. Let me have this.
> 
> My theory is that the 'Empress can't attend the Boyle Ball' rule was just so they didn't have a literal eleven-year-old running around. I mean, how long could the Boyles have been throwing these things? The sisters are not that old. Jessamine doesn't strike me as the party type, so I doubt she and Corvo would have gone of their own volition. But still, bullshit. Billie: "I watched those parties while dying of starvation in the Flooded District." Emily: "I didn't go to those parties either, bitch."
> 
> Staging a fake assassination on the Empress's birthday is something Corvo actually did for Emily. Except he waited until she was eighteen to send assholes to beat the shit out of her. Daud did it when Billie was sixteen because A) Daud is a more hardcore parent than Corvo, somehow, and B) I wanted to use that quip about Martin getting a kick out if it.
> 
> Idk if my Italian is up to par, but technically Ricardo is speaking a Serkonan dialect? Not Italian? So I guess he can say whatever he wants. Also Zhukov is really not going to be much of a character moving forward. I originally planned to put him in Havelock's place, but I was never very happy with that. I'd kill him off, but he's necessary for other character's development. But yeah, he's more of a plot device now. Which, to be fair, is mostly what he's always been.
> 
> Next chapter: we actually kidnap someone. Omg actually moving forward with the plot. (in canon, this mission takes place the same DAY Emily is rescued, and Daud rescued Thomas like a month ago) I'm gonna try to do bi-weekly chapters, but now that I say that something will fuck my plans. I don't have a job currently so idk what, but we'll see. Love y'all!


	15. The Good Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I skip half the mission and still manage to make to write a novella. Daud hates on architecture.  
> Alternative title: The Enemy of my Enemy is Still My Fucking Enemy, Twats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, quick unrelated note. Skip if you don't mind canonical inaccuracies. So, uh, I apparently made a GRIEVOUS error in a previous chapter. In chapter two, I stated that the death count of the Rat Plague had reached 300k when Daud left on his trip. This is larger than the actual population of Dunwall.
> 
> I was under the impression that Dunwall had a population of about 5.6 million at the start of the plague-which isn't that crazy, even for the time period. Cities like Rome and Alexandria (the city in Egypt, not the doctor) had million+ populations as early as 100 BC. Even if it was the equivalent of 1837 in our time, (which it's not-Harvey has stated 1852 is pretty much their modern era, they've just progressed differently) a major city like Dunwall could have totally had a large population like this. The plague would have canonically killed off around 2 million people there.
> 
> Apparently, Dunwall's population sits at just above 200,000. Which seems...incredibly tiny? The city I live in has more than twice that many people, and I don't exactly live in a sprawling metropolis. The entire population count seems off-it also gives a 'district' population of just under 700k, and by district I assume they mean...Gristol? And if that's the population of Gristol, the largest of the Isles, it means the entirety of the Empire has maybe two million people. That's not a fucking Empire. I dunno, it feels like an oversight.  
> But it is technically canon. I have NO idea where my original 5.6 figure came from. I'll work out the numbers and go back and edit that at some point. Onto the actual chapter.
> 
> A few days behind schedule, (don't worry, I didn't find a job or anything) because this is one of the chapters I've been really looking forward to writing and I wanted it to be perfect. Still not 100% happy with everything, but that's what the Edit button is for. A lot of notes because shit's about to go DOWN, y'all.
> 
> Warning for one scene where Daud thinks in depth about suicide methods and for Lizzy Stride existing.

**“** **Citizens and visitors to our city: By order of the Regent, the curfew is now active. No foot traffic is allowed across Kaldwin’s Bridge until curfew is lifted. Attention all citizens…”**

Daud has to scoff at that. Visitors to the city, yeah right. Everyone with a lick of sense and the coin to do so left Dunwall a year ago. If some fools had been visiting when quarantine was enacted, they might as well be permanent residents now. Dunwall will be their grave.

“So what can we expect up on the bridge?” Lizzy asks, watching the water as she steers. Her eyes dart to him when he doesn’t answer. “Daud?”

“Huh?” He blinks, fumbling with the new buttons on his coat sleeve. “I’ve never been.”

Really, it was amazing Jerome was able to salvage as much of his coat as he did. Daud can feel the stitching that joins the new fabric to the old, burnt-but-still-salvageable bits when he runs his finger over the outer layer. It had been a lot of work, but apparently less than it would be completely starting over, Jerome making him new armor from scratch.

He’d also used it as an opportunity to make some improvements. Boiled leather between the linings, something he called ‘moth-dust wrappings’ over the exterior. Jerome explained that it would absorb more light, making him harder to see. He also soaked the entire thing in a flame retardant, so Daud doesn’t almost burn to death again. More pockets. The coat’s heavier now, but Daud finds he feels more secure in it than weighed down. Jerome also added a hood, and wound a scarf around Daud’s neck before he left. Daud doesn’t think covering his face with a napkin will be much protection, but he supposes he _has_ needed to conceal his identity a few times. Probably come up again in the future.

“You’ve never been to Kaldwin’s Bridge.” Lizzy stone-faces him, but then she shrugs and turns back around. “I guess you never had reason to, huh? Living up in that fancy Tower with the Empress and shit.”

“I spent fifteen years on the streets before I ever saw the inside of that palace, Elizabeth Stride. I know Dunwall.”

True, he wasn’t in Dunwall that _entire_ time. Daud moved around a lot in his youth-some time in Baleton and Potterstead, that year he spent in Driscoll, even a six-month stint in Alba. (that was a mistake) He’d get the itch to move and be gone in a night. Roving Feet, the Abbey denounced it. Daud always figured it was the bit of his mother in him. She was always a wanderer.

But he always returned to Dunwall, in the end. Never knew why. He didn’t _like_ Dunwall. But he knew these streets. Could lose himself in the crowds without getting lost. Dunwall wasn’t his home. But it was his.

“I guess. You did meet the Empress on the streets.” Lizzy rolls her shoulders back. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget she was born a gutter urchin. Noble fucks did a good job of making her theirs.”

Funny, because the nobles never forgot she was a streetrat. Never stopped reminding her that she would never, truly be one of them. Billie couldn’t win.

“Anyway. Kaldwin’s Bridge!” Lizzy sweeps her hand out, gesturing towards to large bridge spanning the width of the Wrenhaven. “Commissioned in 1807 by Euhorn Kaldwin, father of the fuck-ass Lady Regent. Holds factories, apartment buildings, and over a hundred individual upper-class homes, all suspended a hundred feet over the water.”

Daud raises his eyebrow. “And you, what, read about this?”

She shakes her head, a smile on her face. “Reed info-dumped me while I helped with the dishes, before we left.”

 _‘I smell blood beneath the stones, and bones in the pylons,’_ Billie whispers. _‘Men died building this structure.’_

Billie doesn’t have a goddamn nose to smell with, but her words make Daud shiver anyway.

“I think it perfectly describes Dunwall,” he says, leaning forward. “A miraculous feat of engineering, a structure that is both entirely unnecessary and uselessly extravagant.” And built, quite literally, on the backs of the poor. The people that lived on this bridge walked atop corpses.

“Couldn’t say it any better myself.”

Then, to Daud’s surprise, Lizzy begins steering _Melusine_ to the right.

“What are we doing?” Daud asks. “Isn’t Sokolov’s apartment on the North End?”

For a moment, Daud wonders if he read the map wrong. The Bridge was labeled north and south despite the fact that the river, and thus the Bridge, actually spanned east and west. Which confused him greatly at first. He supposes the North End might be slightly more north than the Southside, but still. Like he said, unnecessary and more complicated than it needs to be.

But no, he’s sure he’s remembering right. Coming from the north, they should be docking at the left side of the bridge.

Lizzy just shakes her head. “You see those watchlights up there? We’ll be spotted.”

“So?”

“So? The place is under curfew. We might get in fine now, but it’ll be dark by the time we leave with Hypatia.” She guides the boat under one of the bridge’s arches. “Also I don’t know if they have a watchtower set up at the top there. We might be badasses on land, but we’re sitting ducks in the water, remember.”

Daud pulls out the spyglass that Jerome _insisted_ on packing with him and examines the top of the towers. He sees nothing but steel beams and annoying, waving banners.

“A watchtower wouldn’t work from that height.” Daud rolls his eyes, retracting the scope. “But okay, fine. Guess we can ask Alex to meet us back here…”

But Lizzy shakes her head. “We just have to knock out the lights. Probably whale-powered, should be easy enough. Then we can dock the boat at the North End.”

“A solid plan if I’ve ever heard one from you, Stride.” Daud nods in appreciation.

Lizzy pulls up to a dock and shuts the boat engine off. Daud moves to get out of the boat.

Her fingers on his wrist. “Daud.”

“What now?”

“Only one of us has to go up there. The other needs to bring the skiff around.”

“Okay.” He nods, rocking on his feet. “No need to signal you, I guess. You’ll meet me near the safehouse?”

Lizzy stares at him dryly. And Daud gets it.

“If this is about my fucking back, Stride-”

“It’s not-” She scoffs, pinching her lips together and looking to the sky in annoyance. “Look, I had to sit on my ass and wait for you during that whole deal with Abele, okay, you can sit one out too.”

“Then come, if you’re feeling left out. I’m not stopping you.”

“Okay, fine, I don’t want you to go!” Lizzy throws her hands up in the air. “Your back is _fucked up,_ old man! You could barely handle delving through the sewers last week, and I-”

“I wasn’t...in my right mind then.” Daud looks away.

“I’m not even talking about that. You were in pain.”

“I can _handle_ pain.”

Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you’re tough. I get it. Fuck me for not wanting you to die, I guess.”

Daud scoffs as she passes him by, jumping out of the boat. “I’m not going to-”

“You almost did.” Lizzy whirls around, her nose scrunching up before her expression goes blank. She folds her arms. “You were invincible one minute, cutting down Overseers and shit, and the next I was fishing your body out of the river and wondering how the hell I was going to explain to Thomas that his dad boiled to death on my watch. Do you know what that stunt you pulled _did_ to him?”

Daud is silent. Lizzy continues to tear into him, her voice becoming more uneven at every word.

“I wasn’t there when someone gave him the news, but I’m pretty sure he broke some record sprinting over to Trimble’s clinic. He yelled and invoked whatever Emperor-ly authority he has when Trimble told him to get out. He. Would. Not. Leave. Your. Side. Rose had to threaten to give him poppy tincture before he’d go the fuck to sleep.” Lizzy’s hands cut through the air, and her eyes flash. “And I swear to the Void, if you _ever_ do that shit to us again, I will-”

“Think you’re being quiet?!”

Daud sees a flash of blue up near the top of the stairs, behind the fencing that covers the topside of the bridge. Without hesitation, he grabs Lizzy by her jacket and pulls her down on top of him. Arm around her waist, the other at her back, flattening them both down in the boat. She bangs her lip on his sternum, responds with a hushed “fuck”, but that’s all the protest he gets. She presses her head into his chest and they wait.

“What’s wrong?”

“Thought I heard someone over here…”

Daud watches through Void Gaze. Just two of them, a normal guard flanked by an officer. He could take them out easily. But he might not have to. And Lizzy doesn’t have her mask on yet, her face bare to see.

“Might just be rats again…”

“It sounded like a lady.” The guard checks under the bridge arch, but mercifully chooses just to turn back when he sees nothing. “I dunno, what if it was a river mermaid? That’d be sexy.”

“More likely to be a damn ghost. There’s something weird about this river. The wife feels it too, says it just feels... _sad.”_ They’re turning back now, ascending the steps. “Can’t wait until quarantine’s lifted, move back to Karnaca. No haunted rivers there.”

Daud doesn’t release Lizzy until he sees them disappear, and she spits blood into the water and rubs what’s left off her lip.

“Stay in the fucking boat, Daud,” she says, not looking at him. “I’ll meet you at the North End, and we’ll go talk to Hypatia together. Let me handle this.”

“Lizzy.” She stops, her shoulders raised to her ears, but she listens.

Daud closes his eyes and breathes out. “A little challenge for you. No deaths on our conscience today.”

“You still on that?” She turns, and even smiles.

“We don’t need to run the river red, Stride. And you don’t need to kill people if you don’t get caught.” He leans forward. “Unless you’re not good enough to stay out of sight.”

“As if, old man.” She snorts. “I’ll keep my blade clean if you don’t fuck up my boat anymore.”

And she presses her mask to her face, disappears into the black.

Daud pops a cigarette and tries to calm his fluttering heartrate. Lizzy is more than capable-and now that’s he’s put it to a challenge, she’ll avoid starting shit too, thinking she’s proving herself. She can’t get hurt if she doesn’t get into fights.

And if something does happen, well, she can Call to him. That makes him feel better.

 _‘The river ahead is thick with the dead.’_ Billie’s voice is quiet, swallowed up by the sound of the waves. _‘There was no more elixir, no food or help after...when the Empress, when she?’_ She trails off. _‘She’s not...I was there. I had no eyes, but I saw.’_

Daud looks out on the water. He wishes he could help, have a real conversation with her, but he knows it’s no use. Billie is lost to him when she’s...like this.

Daud’s sorted Billie’s moods into three categories. There was the informative voice, whispering secrets and knowledge that shouldn’t be possible for her to hold into his ear. Those are the times she’ll make what passes for jokes for her now, philosophizes on whatever subject that has garnered her attention. That’s when she sounds like _his_ Billie, the one he remembers.

Then there was the...rage. She still sounds like Billie then, but in a way that makes his stomach turn. Billie was always quick to anger, even as a child, but this is different. The fury takes her over. He tried so hard to keep her from that-tried not to engage with her when she was being combative, literally held her down when she got violent until she could calm herself. He didn’t want her to end up as bitter as him. Her angry moments, it’s like the worst of her meltdowns except she never runs out of steam, has to formulate words to express her anger instead of lashing out physically, and Daud has no way to restrain her. She sounds like Billie, but it’s the part of Billie he always wished he could shoulder for her.

And then there’s this. The confused. Like Billie is adrift in the sea, and Daud has no way of guiding her back to land. He hates it because she’s forgotten, because she has no way to express her own existence to herself, because she’s so clearly distressed about it all. He hates it because he also wishes she could stay like that. He never hears about it, but he knows that at some point, Billie has to remember. The confusion will end as she remembers that she’s dead, how she died, that Daud is exploiting her now. As horrible he feels for her in those moments, in the midst of her confusion, they have to be better than the moment it all comes back to her.

He lets the boat bob with the waves, smoking down his cigarette. His thoughts turn to her words on the plague victims, floating downriver. He knows that Delilah (or Lord Burrows, apparently, as it seems that she’s allowing him to run amok with his ideas for fighting the plague-she can’t be bothered to actually govern, of course) is sending the corpses to Rudshore, not too far south of here. Again, he doesn’t know why. There were plenty of abandoned lots and buildings across Dunwall now, it should be relatively easy to plot out places to dig mass graves. Easier still if they burned them. The Abbey had protested that, for whatever fucking reason. Something about disgracing the dead and it not being true cremation.

Dumping them in Rudshore might put the problems out of sight, but they were far from gone. Daud highly doubts they were taking the time to bury the bodies once they were in the district. Besides the plague dead being infectious themselves, the biggest problem with the existence of the corpses was the fact that the rats ate them. An easy food source meant more rats surviving and going on to breed, more rats to spread the plague. Covering the corpses with dirt would impede the rats, if not completely stop them. Rudshore is likely a fertile breeding ground for plague rats by now.

That is, if it’s dry. He remembers when the dam broke, when Rudshore flooded. They were at court, and a servant had darted in and whispered the news into the Empress’s ear. Billie had gone completely grey and immediately dismissed court for the day, her legs so rubbery that she had stumbled trying to get to her feet. Daud had to help her stand. She had sat with her head in her hands as she was debriefed, her eyes far away and haunted. But there was nothing she could do, she had said, after her advisors had made their exit and they were alone together in her office. She stared out the window, out past her blank reflection in the glass and towards her city. Fixing the dam, draining the district, rebuilding, it would require manpower and tax money that just wasn’t available. All she could do was send out boats, help the survivors. Hope for the best. There was nothing more she could do.

Was the district completely underwater? Billie had wanted to visit, see it first-hand and help out, but both he and her advisors said no. Too dangerous, and her presence wouldn’t have helped matters much anyway. She knew that. But she still wanted to be there. That was Billie.

If the dead are spilling out into the river, that would indicate there was enough water for them to float, enough to put them at sea level. Dropping the dead into essentially river water, that would cause a host of other problems. The plague didn’t only affect humans-plenty of livestock had contracted the disease. Cats were extremely susceptible, for some reason. Which was very unfortunate because they could have kept the rat population down. They didn’t know if aquatic creatures could get it. Just what they needed, plague-bearing hagfish.

And, plague in the river water? You couldn’t drink the water from the Wrenhaven now anyway, but plenty of people still used it for washing. Boiled it first, but still. And wouldn’t it run the risk of contaminating the water table? Daud doesn’t really know shit about groundwater and whatnot, but that sounds like it could be a thing.

There’s a slight sound, the smallest snippet of a word. Daud puts his smoke down and lets the Talisman take form.

“Did you say something, Billie?”

She speaks with several voices, all inaudible whispering bouncing off the waves. He listens intently, and he faintly makes out _‘Take me closer.’_

“To Lizzy?” he raises an eyebrow. Lizzy’s not in danger-he can feel her, right on the edge of his being, feel her heartrate and her vague position if he concentrates. “Where do you want to go?”

More whispers. Like the archaic language he hears when he uses his powers, but in Billie’s voice. As if she can’t remember how to speak her mother tongue.

Then, _‘The water.’_

“You want to go out on the water?” Daud starts the engine up again. Not like he has anything else to do while he waits.

Daud steers the boat out to the open river, glancing back at Kaldwin’s Bridge from the south side. Watchlights on this part of the river too. Though he’s far out of their reach, and it’s still dusk in any case. They won’t care about one lone boatman a quarter mile away from the bridge.

He shuts off the engine and lets the waves rock the skiff, leaning back and staring up at the sky. It’s still a little too bright for stars, but they’d be out soon. Maybe if Lizzy took a while, he could stargaze with her. One last time.

Fuck, Billie loved this shit. Loved boats, loved being out on the open water. Daud took her out as much as they were able to, stealing early mornings before court and nighttime escapades away from her royal duties. On days with busy river traffic, Billie would point out all the passing ships and vessels and rattle off names and facts about them, and he’d listen and nod politely even though he could care less. Watching the excitement in her face, that was the real show. If there were no boats to prattle on about, they’d take their eyes off her city and watch the sky. Didn’t need to say much. These trips weren’t for talking.

When was the last time he did that for her? Did he take her a final time before he left on his trip, or was it before she asked him to go? He can’t remember when it was, what they were avoiding. How it felt. Would he have treated it differently, if he had known it would be their last time?

He feels odd, like there are eyes on him. He takes out his spyglass, scanning over the bridge until his eye rests on a shadowy figure at the very top of the bridge, in between the two towers.

Lizzy waves.

Well, she’s definitely gotten over her fear of heights, Daud thinks with a smile. He folds the spyglass back up and tucks it into his coat.

_‘Closer.’_

At that, Daud frowns and holds Billie up. “Did you want to go for a swim, or...”

_‘No! I need to be closer!’_

There, Daud feels it. A movement in the Talisman, unlike her throbbing and humming. A tug, urging him downriver.

Daud looks up at the spires of Dunwall Tower.

_‘You’re too far! Take me closer!’_

“Billie, I…” His mouth is open, but he can’t get the right words to compile, to give to her.

_‘Lead me there! Take me back!’_

He knows she’s not talking about the Tower. She had similar feelings as him regarding her palace-that it was a beautiful work of architecture, imposing and cold and not at all homely. She would have strongly preferred living somewhere else. Maybe a classy apartment overlooking the harbor or, knowing Billie, a goddamn houseboat. She had an estate out in the countryside, inherited from her father, that she loved. She never liked living in the Tower. She wouldn’t want to go back now.

But beneath Dunwall Tower is a large system of man-made caves, accessible only through a winding path down the cliffside from the Tower grounds itself. Reserved only for the Royal Family and their close friends, not open to the public. The Imperial Crypt.

Daud always thought it was creepy. Why would the Emperor want the bones of his parents so close all the time? How was Billie comfortable literally walking over her father’s grave? He could never truly determine how the layout of the tombs worked in relation to the Tower floor plan, so he was always acutely aware that at any given moment, he could be standing over Emperor Lurk’s stupid face and not know it. He didn’t get why the crypt had to be literally right under the palace.

Now, Billie’s ruined body lies there. Where she rests, or is supposed to.

And that’s where Billie wants to be.

_‘Give me back to her! Let me go back!’_

“Billie, I…” His mouth is dry. He swallows, painfully. “I _can’t.”_

_‘You must! This separation must end!’_

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t go back now.”

_‘No! I must return to the flesh! Get me closer!”_

“We can get a little closer,” Daud says, even though he shouldn’t bait her like this. “But I can’t tonight. They’ll kill me before I reach you.”

And he can’t give up the Talisman right now. Not tonight. He’s not...he’s not ready. He needs time to prepare for that.

Billie is placated as they roll with the waves, but only momentarily. She starts up again once she realizes they’re only drifting in the vague directly of Dunwall Tower, not nearly fast enough. _‘You’re off your mark!’_

“I just told you-”

_‘Don’t you see? She is a shell with my face, feeding off the cracks in the world. She needs me! You must let me go to her!’_

‘She’ is a corpse, far too rotted away to be of any use. Daud can’t exactly say the dead coming back to life is an impossibility-he literally holds her spirit in his hand as he performs a dozen impossible tasks, impossibility wasn’t a word-but even he can’t entertain _that_ fantasy.

Daud shakes his head, and Billie’s voice wavers. Anger and sorrow, pain in every strain of her voice.

_‘It hurts to be so near! Point me to her!’_

He can feel her there, her energy focused and centered. Pushing on the walls of her prison. Banging her fists, clawing her way out.

_‘This is a great perversion! I must be one with the flesh!’_

“Billie, I’m sorry. I’ll take you there, but not until-”

 _‘Take me BACK!_ **_GIVE HER BACK!’_ **

Daud is stunned silent. And then the bridge watchlight goes out.

He needs to...go. He starts up the boat again without another word.

 _‘No. No, this is wrong.’_ Billie might weep, if Daud had ever known her to really do that. He just continues piloting the boat. _‘Please. Take me to her. Take me home.’_

Daud says nothing. And Billie mercifully dissolves into the strange whispers and half-crying sounds he heard earlier as they drift away from the Tower.

As they near the bridge and Billie tapers off, Daud is forced to acknowledge that his suspicions were correct. Billie would have to be returned to her body in order to release her.

Why, he has no idea. The Empress’s tomb holds nothing but a bundle of bones by now. Billie has no flesh to return to-it was all blackened and dry, shriveled around her skeleton. Her muscles bloated until her skin split open, pink and raw and oozing with viscera, then discolored and cracked as seawater was wrung from her form, drying her out. She wasn’t even complete anymore. Her fingers had been nibbled at, and her eyes were missing. They had to hold her upper body together with gauze as they prepared the body for burial, because her joints came loose and part of her arm nearly fell off. The water had washed away bits of her with the tide and the pounding of the waves. He’s sure Billie would find humor in that-a part of her would always be in the sea. But those parts are forever out of Daud’s reach.

It wasn’t as if she could be restored. Her body held nothing for for her now-nothing of value to anyone except Daud.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe she needed to see that, know it before she could make peace with her death. Or something.

Maybe she never does remember. Maybe Billie doesn’t know she’s dead.

In any case, he would need to visit her grave. He promised Thomas their own little funeral, a chance to say goodbye, but Daud will never, ever tell him about the Talisman. He’d have to sneak down before they did that, visit her on his own. Let her go.

Would he...would it be enough just being in the room with her? How close did she have to be? If he had to actually return to her, he’d have to access the casket. Which was currently contained in a sarcophagus literally carved into the plinth it lied upon, under a slab of stone that weighed at least a ton. He’d have to...find a way to cut through the concrete that bound it, and obviously redo it afterwards. And he couldn’t lift the top off himself. Maybe with him, Lizzy, Paul, and Galia combined, they could lift it. But then he’d have to explain to them why he needed to disturb the tomb of his Empress.

And he doesn’t want to...open it. Doesn’t want to see her reduced to another body wrapped in a sheet, doesn’t want to cut open her shroud and disturb her.

Ridiculous. Daud’s seen bodies in all stages of decomposition. He knows, conceivably, what Billie must look like now. The witches had given him enough details to put the picture together himself. He conjures the images in his head, sees them in his nightmares, no matter how hard he works to banish them from his thoughts. He’d prefer not to see his Empress in that state. He’d rather remember her how she appeared on the last day of her life, skin smooth and all her body parts in their right place. Beautiful, intelligent, and strong. That’s what Billie was, and he knew she’d rather that be the image of her he held onto.

But that doesn’t matter. It it gives Billie peace, Daud will do it. And anyway, whenever he pictures her now, his thoughts immediately turn to her fearful, pallid face as she lied on the stones, how her blood stuck to his hands for days until they started submerging him in cold water as an interrogation technique. Disturbing her decrepit, lifeless corpse, living with that image burned into his brain, that was a small price to pay to set Billie free.

But he hopes it doesn’t come to that.

 

* * *

 

He guides the skiff back to the north side of the bridge before turning towards their meeting point, hoping it’ll keep Billie from demanding her return. This has been the closest he’s gotten to the Tower since he got her back-hopefully it was just the proximity to her old body that triggered it.

He doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to handle it when he returns to kill Delilah. Or if Ashworth is anywhere near the Tower District.

Regardless, Billie stays quiet. After a bit, Daud picks up again and starts talking to her, rambles on about the kids back at base and their drama. He feels her hum, but it’s a gentle thing. He can’t tell if she’s hurt or angry with him. But if she is, he lets her be.

Coming up on the drawbridge, Daud’s eyes are dragged to one of the buildings that look over the water. A balcony with its door thrown open, casting out a purple hue that leaks into the air. In his hand, the Talisman thrums a little faster.

Fuck, he doesn’t want to deal with this. He swears he sees the black-eyed bastard’s face in his nightmares almost as much as Billie’s, all sneering down on him and laughing at Daud’s misery. But he hasn’t actually seen Him since the day he rescued Thomas. He knows there’s a shrine down in the sewers, so Daud can technically go talk to the asshole whenever he wants, but he...doesn’t.

But the song of the runes catch on his ears, and Daud finds himself veering off his determined path.

He docks _Melusine_ under the bridge, and has to sneak up the steps while keeping his head ducked as the guards above joke about their arc pylon killing Bottle Street gang members. Daud shakes his head. He can’t wait until Thomas gets rid of those things. Clearly, people couldn’t be trusted even with the low power module.

Daud walks down the backstreet in the direction of the purple apartment, listening closely for the hum of bone. No bodies half-heartedly hidden in the bushes, at least, which means Lizzy’s held herself to her promise.

“OUTLIVE ME?!”

Daud jumps, and hurries to hide himself off the path, but it’s unnecessary. The voice comes from above, grating and hoarse, screaming to the air.

“You will not outlive me!” the voice yells. “I will see the summer, and the winter after that! I will remember none of you! I will not remember any of you!”

If he was suffering from the plague, then he might live to see the Month of Hearths. But plague victims didn’t usually have the strength to yell out obscenities at random.

“I am the one! I am the one who sees it all! I see everything and you see nothing! _Nothing!”_

And the plague didn’t fuck with your brain like this. It attacked it, destroyed its logical functions, leaving its victims incapable of clear thought but fully able to feel pain. It did not induce delusional ramblings.

The man steps out onto the balcony above Daud, slamming his hands on the railing. "Look past me, moon. Look past me, sun. I am not your bride! You will not come to me today! I will be untouched!"

No, whatever this guy’s problem was, he had it long before any plague set in.

“The sun! It burns!” He turns and walks back inside, raving all the way. “Why does it burn? Why did we put the sun into a jar?! And then we broke it all over our little world…”

Daud Blinks to the balcony, standing behind the doorframe so to not be seen. The man paces in his apartment, dressed haphazardly and definitely too skinny to be healthy, but not weeper-like. To the side of the room, Daud spies the altar and the rune carefully places atop its surface.

“It has taken my water.” The man paces, shaking his hand and muttering. “It has taken my blood, it has taken my seed. Why will it not speak to me?”

...ew.

The air is rich with the stink of rot. Daud sees the corpse in the corner, blood on his chest and bugs swarming around. The mad man gravitates towards the other side of the room, to the balcony overlooking the streets.

“I will set fire on the hairs on their faces! I pull nails from their feet with my own teeth!” He pounds his fists on the railing. “I will taste their eyes against my tongue like the eggs of fish! I will set fire on the hairs of their faces!”

Okay, then.

There’s a bang as something solid hits the balcony. “Shut up, bleeder!”

“A great crack shall open in the earth and swallow the non-believers!” The man screams, pointing down at whoever protested his ramblings. “And they shall weep! Weep! _Weep!_ Tears of salt and earth and dirt!”

A green dart pinches the man in his elbow, and Daud pulls him out of view as he stumbles.

Right. Hopefully he’ll wake up a little more clear-headed, Daud thinks as he props the man up against the wall. If not, well, it’s not really Daud’s problem anymore.

No point in putting it off any longer, he supposes. Daud turns and readies himself to face the Outsider.

The cracks come as soon as his hand touches the bone, just as Daud expects. Then the black-eyes bastard is there, sitting on the altar with His legs crossed, as if He’s always been there.

“I so enjoy watching history warp as words pass from the lips of one to the ears of another.” The Outsider is already grinning with too many teeth, gesturing with His long fingers. “Imperfectly formed, half understood, poorly remembered.”

“So you admit that you like fucking with us?” Daud raises his eyebrow. “You like seeing the results of the chaos you cause.”

“Nobody ordered man to create war. They fight of their own accord, and I don’t choose who wins and whose body gets tossed into the river. I simply enjoy watching.”

Daud grits his teeth and stares.

The Outsider just smirks and fades from existence. When Daud’s eyes locate Him again, He’s standing with His back turned and His hands clasped behind His back, staring over the water.

“Can you stop doing-”

“Rivers change course over many lifetimes,” the Outsider interrupts. “And eventually all bridges come tumbling down. A thousand years ago, there was another city on this spot. The people carved the bones of whales and inscribed them with my Mark. Children still find them washed up in the river mud.”

“It may have gone by a different name,” Daud states. “But if people have lived here the entire time, it’s the same city.”

Dunwall wasn’t his home, but it was where he made himself. Where he met his streetrats. Where his Billie had ruled. It was always _her_ city. It always would be.

“Really?” The Outsider turns, and cocks His head. “That’s a bold assumption to make, as a man standing in the death throes of a civilization. I’ve seen cities go bad before, and I’ve seen all of Dunwall’s futures. And I can tell you that if the appropriate steps aren’t taken, Dunwall will be a city of corpses and rats within five years.”

When Daud doesn’t respond, the Outsider shrugs His shoulders and returns to calmly gazing out towards the river. “Who knows? Maybe in a few centuries, people will have forgotten the ghost capital of the Empire, the city swallowed by plague, and they will clear away the rubble and the ruined buildings and start anew. Build another city atop the dead. Perhaps your Empress’s bones will wash up on the shore, and children will play games with her skull and witches will carve totems from her ribs.”

“That’s enough.” Daud’s voice shakes.

The Outsider just smiles, and passes Daud by with His nose in the air.

“I’ll tell you what I _do_ see.” The Outsider waves His hand. “In the years to come, monsters like the Rat King and Crow Queen, the Dunwall Butcher and even the Crown Killer, their stories will be twisted and bent. Hammered like soft metal.” He grins as Daud perks up in interest at the names. “By some accounts, monsters that had to be put down. By others, victims of treachery. Saved because in the end, you found another way.”

There was no other way. They had to die. They all had to die.

“But what future comes to pass is not up to me. That choice belongs to you, Daud, my friend.” The Outsider holds his arms out. “Will your decision be immortalized by pen, written as a memoir years from now as you sit in the Tower gardens, reflecting as you watch your adopted grandchildren play amongst the flowerbeds? Or will it be scratched out on these crumbling city walls in red ink, drawing from your own vein when all the blood on your blade has run dry? What will be written in that final chapter, Daud? What _happens_ to scary monsters, in the end?”

Then the Outsider is gone, and the room is whole and empty.

Daud breathes. Then he kicks the shrine over with a yell.

He listens for guards who may have heard his outburst, still breathing hard. But eventually his lungs relax and he’s able to uncurl his fists, and all is quiet outside.

Daud closes the balcony doors, wondering how this crazy asshole hasn’t frozen his dick off. He toes the pile of driftwood, but leaves it alone. Not like the guy had a rune for his shrine, anyway. Daud slips out the front.

Now what? He doesn’t want to return to the skiff right away-he feels antsy, like his muscles are dancing and he needs a way to expend his energy. He checks-Lizzy isn’t at the North End yet, so he’s got some time to fuck away.

The streets are empty. Daud keeps an eye out for any patrolling guards as he Blinks down to check the wanted posters on the board. One for him is still up, and again the sight of Billie’s portrait at the side makes his heart clench, but the paper is already fading in places and the corners are overlapped by other posters. Same bounty. The wording has changed from ‘wanted dead or alive’ to ‘bounty will be paid out on forfeiture of him or his remains’, which is interesting. Delilah truly thinks him to be dead, then. Just as well.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Daud recognizes the picture on the next poster as Lizzy’s whaler mask. The bounty notice lists the infamous Crown Killer as A) female, and B) taller than either Lizzy or Daud is. It makes no mention of magic use. Her bounty is the same as Daud’s has been sitting at for the past month, 30,000 coin. He doesn’t want to know how much the bounties would be if Delilah knew they were both for the same person.

Both the Crow Queen and the Rat King, however, their bounties have increased since Daud last saw their posters. 20,000 for each, 50,000 if they’re brought in together. Fucking Void, did she plan to have any money left to rebuild Dunwall? The Imperial coffers ran deep, but they were dry as of late. And it wasn’t like there was any tax money coming in to replenish it.

He climbs to the top of the apartment building and stares out at Dunwall. What he wouldn’t give to go for a run now. Jumping across rooftops, climbing trellises and gutter pipes to get higher.

Was it...true, what the Outsider had said? Five years. Five years for the rats to take over and for Billie’s city to crumble into dust and crushed bits of bone.

Thomas would insist on staying, on going down with the ship, because that’s how Thomas is. How Billie was, too. Daud would have to drag him out. He doesn’t really know why Dunwall is the capital of the Empire-he’s sure Billie learned the reasons behind it during her lessons, but Daud certainly doesn’t remember. In any case, circumstances changed. Laws could be as well. Some other city could easily be made the capital. Thomas could rule from anywhere.

**“The Lady Regent has increased her reward for information leading to the discovery of our late Empress’s heir, her brother Thomas Lurk, to fifteen thousand coin upon the recovery of him or his remains. Be advised, claiming the reward does not confer legal immunity.”**

She’s getting desperate. Good.

The idea of abandoning Dunwall, abandoning Billie, doesn’t sit well with Daud either, but there’s no sacrifice too great when it came to Thomas’s safety. She would understand.

Unless the right steps are taken...but Daud has not a clue what steps are even available right now, let alone which of them would lead to survival.

Was bringing Alexandria Hypatia back to base with them a mistake? Delilah may not be doing much to combat the plague herself, but she is providing the resources for others to do so, even if it is just for keeping up appearances. And this Hypatia really seems like she might hold the cure that saves Dunwall. She could certainly continue her work in Draper’s Ward, but it wasn’t like Jerome could provide her with the same arsenal she has at her disposal here.

Or-what if she _needs_ to be with her uncle? What if that’s what allows her to stumble across a cure?

Maybe Hypatia had nothing to do with the cure. Maybe it all hinges on another choice Daud made, one he couldn’t anticipate causing the problems it will. Or maybe it has nothing to do with him at all.

Fuck, if the black-eyed bastard could see all the paths and destinations, it would help if He _told_ Daud where to turn.

Why couldn’t He give Daud, like, actual information? Even Billie’s half-stoned predictions were more helpful than the black-eyed bastard’s ramblings. He wasted all that time babbling about those murderers-why did He even bring them up? They have nothing to do with this. And Daud would rather not entertain the thought of them until he had to. It served no purpose but to raise his blood pressure and distract him from his mission. He’d deal with _them_ in time. Later, when Thomas is on his throne and everyone he cares about is safe.

He’ll hunt them down...no. He’ll fantasize about it later. For now, he has shit to do.

 _‘I see...the Captain at the Helm. Hypatia sees the Tusked Leviathan.’_ Billie’s voice almost startles him. She’s been unnaturally quiet since her breakdown earlier, but now her voice is lighter. He can almost imagine her smiling, pointing to the sky. _‘What do you see in the stars?’_

Daud looks up. Normally, the lights of Dunwall would make it impossible to see the stars until the sky was nearly black. But tonight, even though the sun is still melting into the water and casting its orange light over the city, there’s a glow from beyond the heavens. Faint, but visible.

Thomas has studied astronomy, more out of pure curiosity than any need. He knows what the stars and various celestial bodies are made of, how they were formed and how they move in relation to their world. Daud never fucking understood any of it. Billie had taught herself to read star charts and could name what seemed like hundreds of different constellations, fantasizing about the sailing career she would never get to have. Daud never got how she could identify one particular star from another, among the thousands in the sky. They swim in front of his eyes and he could lose himself in them, if he allowed it.

He can’t afford that. He has to go meet Lizzy. But…

Soon. Lizzy is still making her way down the bridge. He has some time until he has to go to her. Not enough time to get lost, but enough to wander.

Daud takes a seat on the blue tiled roof, brushing away the dead leaves and ignoring the cold seeping into his pants. He takes Billie into his hands and leans back, looks up. And together they watch the stars.

 

* * *

 

 _‘This bridge used to be popular among poets and lovers,’_ Billie remarks grimly as Daud guides _Melusine_ through the water. _‘But with the advent of the plague, it has gained a darker reputation. Aristocrats and beggars, the healthy and the sick, all types gather and leap from its girders.’_

He feels like there would be easier methods. A fall from the decking into the water wouldn’t be fatal, though there are a number of hagfish present. It would work if you climbed one of the towers, but there were plenty of tall buildings around Dunwall to throw yourself off of. Accomplish the same goal and much more accessible. If your goal was to drown, you could pick any spot on the Wrenhaven to sink yourself.

Firearms were also ridiculously common. Easy. Antagonizing the Watch would work. Though if Daud chose to, if he failed again and Thomas lost his life, he’d use his sword. Maybe that was cheesy, but it was the only method that felt right and fair. It would hurt. That was fine.

But then Daud shakes his head. What the fuck is wrong with him?

He docks _Melusine_ under one of the bridge’s arches, pulling up his hood when he sees he’s not the only occupant. A man in a brown tweed coat leans against the wall, smoking, probably waiting to give a guard a ride home considering he’s not even trying to hide his curfew-breaking. He waves to Daud as he steps out of the boat. Daud gives a half-hearted wave back to keep him placated and turns his head as he walks away. Tweed-man looks old and is probably too far away to see his face, but just in case.

He sidesteps loose bricks and crumbled drywall as he ascends the steps, wrinkling his nose. Looking up, many of the buildings in this area are falling apart. Now why the fuck would that be? People were dying of plague, not earthquakes or regular bombings. As far as he knew, buildings couldn’t get sick.

Unless they were falling down due to lack of upkeep. What idiot engineer designed these houses then, if they’re literally crumbling to the ground after a few months of disrepair? This just reinforces his theory that Kaldwin was an idiot who liked to waste his money on useless things. Why was a bridge like this necessary? How was the amount of manpower needed to maintain it justifiable?

“Did you hear that?!”

Daud immediately ducks down, but Void Gaze shows him that there’s no guards nearby. There are three-no, two living people up top. Standing in what looks like a cage.

“Keep your voice down!” A female voice responds. “I _heard._ But what am I supposed to do about it?” she asks flippantly.

The front of the cage is unbarred, though on further concentration, Daud sees a whale oil port and a wiring panel off to the side. A wall of light, then. He can’t wait until Thomas bans those too.

“Don’t you get it?! We’re gonna _die.”_ The man in the cage begins pacing, while his female companion just leans against the wall and watches. “That crazy Hypatia bitch is going to do some witch-doctor shit to us! We have to get out!”

“Shh! You know better than to mention the W-word! If you have a plan, then I am _happy_ to hear it.”

“Poor bastards.”

Without warning, Daud hauls back and punches Lizzy flat in the mouth.

“Fucking...goddammit, Stride.” Daud shakes his head as Lizzy removes her mask. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you. You’re just unobservant as fuck.” Lizzy gingerly touches her already reddening lip.

Daud highly doubts that, but he just sighs and reaches out to brush her hair away, get a better look at the mark he left. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve had worse.” Though she winces when his finger brushes over the skin. “Seriously, Daud, quit mothering me.”

That’s not at all what he’s doing, but he drops it anyways.

“How was your trip over here?” he asks in a whisper, guiding them both further down the steps, away from the guard presence. “You don’t look any worse for wear. I take it you didn’t run into any trouble?”

“Kept above their heads, mostly. You’ll be happy to know I didn’t pick any fights.” She rolls her eyes. “Even though some of them really deserved it.”

“I thought we went over this.”

“We did. And I listened. Seriously, I had a Bottle Street fucker trick me into breaking him out of a cell only to have his buddies jump me. Coulda killed them all, but I just sleep-darted both his friends and put the fear of the Outsider into the guy.”

Daud folds his arms, nodding along. “They didn’t hurt you?”

Lizzy shakes her head. “Nah, I knew something was up and got above them. Two darts, told jailbreak-dude that if he ever pulled that shit again I’d find him and break both his legs before dumping him in the river. Then I tossed him in a dumpster and left him crying for his mother.” She huffs. “I hate that shit, you know? Preying on good people. If you’re gonna fuck someone’s shit up, fuck up someone who deserves it.”

“Good. Anything else to report?”

“Uh, I saved one lady who was hobo-ing it up in a rat nest basement. And I nabbed some of those bone things you’re obsessed with.” She pops open one of her pockets, showing them off. “That’s about it. Am I done with the baby monitoring, dad?”

Daud resists rolling his eyes, glancing out at the water. “You didn’t kill anyone, right?”

“He was dead when I got there.”

His head snaps to the side. “Stride.”

“I’m serious!” She raises her hands. “That Pratchett eels dude, looks like he jumped off his top balcony.”

Daud groans. “When I said keep your blade clean, I meant it metaphorically.”

“Yeah, and so did I!” She folds her arms. “I’m not lying to you, Daud, he was lying there dead when I came up on his house. Probably offed himself. I would too, if my claim to fame was canned eels.” She shrugs. “I will admit, I robbed his house blind. But I would of done that anyway.”

He can never tell whether Lizzy’s lying to him or not. But there’s really no way to verify it now.

“So what’s the deal with Sokolov’s place?” Daud gestures. “You been able to do any reconnaissance?”

“A bit, but we’ll get into that in a minute. These fuckers,” Lizzy leans in, lowering her voice even more. “Are rounding up healthy-ass people for Hypatia to experiment on. Dress-dude’s pretty little niece is killing people with the plague.”

Daud nods. “And? How else is she supposed to conduct her research?”

Lizzy sputters. “Experimenting on citizens, Daud! _Killing_ civilians?”

“If a cure isn’t found, they’ll be dead anyway.” Daud motions to the cage. “But this way, maybe everyone else won’t be.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Have you ever heard of ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’, Stride?” Daud leans back on his heels. “Or ‘shelving hard decisions is the least ethical-’”

“I can’t believe you’re saying it’s okay to experiment on people!”

“I’m not-” Daud tips his head back and exhales through his nose. “I’m not saying it’s _right,”_ he says in a harsh whisper. “But-look at our situation here. We can do what needs to be done, or we can keep our hands clean and let everyone die of the plague. Those are our options. We can’t do this the right way because there _is_ no right way.”

“Did the _Empress_ allow this shit?”

She waits. Daud presses his lips together and stares back.

Lizzy scoffs and turns away. “Knew it. Of course you wouldn’t go against something _she-”_

“Don’t you fucking finish that sentence. If you dare insult your Empress, Stride-”

“You’ll what? You’ll kill me?” Lizzy rolls back her shoulders and watches him down the tip of her nose. “She’s not even my goddamn Empress even more. She’s _dead._ And she clearly didn’t stand for people like me when she made that decision.”

“She was trying to _save_ people like you! You think it was an easy decision?”

“Oh, sorry. I totally didn’t think about how some rich lady up in her tower might feel a little sad about literally murdering people.”

“It was a last resort. They weren’t even doing it yet when I left. She just...authorized it if all other avenues failed.” His breath shudders as it comes out. “She did it for Dunwall.”

Whether there is indeed another way, a _better_ way, that Daud doesn’t know. But, feeling the hilt of his blade and thinking of all the blood that’s seeped into the metal, he thinks that he cannot possibly be the judge of that.

“These guards are acting like they’re _animals.”_ Lizzy motions. “Overheard one of them calling them all pigs. Who cares about pigs going to slaughter? Not even human to them.”

“They’re trying to justify it to themselves.”

“Pfft. If you do shitty things, you don’t get to hide from it.” Lizzy kicks a pebble.

He’d like to ask her what was so different about her drinking habit, if it wasn’t about muting her thoughts and hiding from her conscience. Daud and Lizzy do plenty of horrible shit. Necessary horrible shit. He doubts she likes confronting it either.

But he gets what she’s saying. It was a dangerous slope to be on. But there was no other way to climb this mountain.

Daud sighs and, making sure his hood is secure, Blinks away.

Lizzy is by his side in a moment, crouching on the splintered wood of the second-story floor. “What are we doing _now?”_

“Don’t you want to free them?”

He gives nothing away in his face, but Lizzy looks relieved. For a moment, at least, until she slips her mask back on.

“There’s three guards patrolling the block.”

“We’ll take them out. _Without_ killing them, Stride.” Daud cracks his neck. “You might think they’re bad people, but I guarantee you, they think the same about us.”

Lizzy turns to him, but simply stares for a long moment. “Fuck, Daud, you’re some sort of philosopher bullshitter or something.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“I don’t know either.”

Lizzy falls on one of the guards and slams his forehead into the ground, probably giving him one hell of a concussion. She waves their little bottle of poppy tincture in front of his face (their only one, currently, as Daud’s was destroyed in the slaughterhouse explosion and Jerome was still distilling another batch-Daud _did_ promise her the next bottle) and the man’s out. She creeps up on another while his back is turns and chokes him out, puts him to sleep. Daud Blinks down the street until he’s in position to put a sleep dart in the officer’s neck. They dump the unconscious bodies in the foyer of a nearby apartment building that doesn’t look particularly rat-infested.

Then Daud pulls his scarf over his nose. The top half of his scar is still visible, but with the shadows of his hood, it isn’t terribly obvious. Have to be good enough. Daud had refused the whaler mask Jerome pushed at him. He’s never covered his face. He tolerates the hood, the scarves and the handkerchiefs over his mouth, but that’s it. Never a mask.

Lizzy positions herself in front of the cage as Daud yanks out the tank powering the wall of light. The ex-subjects look up, startled, when it suddenly powers down and Lizzy steps forward.

“I take it he-” She motions to the crumbled corpse in the corner. “-is beyond saving, but you fucks probably have some living you want to get done.”

“I…” The woman gapes like a fish, her hands clutched to her chest. “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re doing this…”

“Lady, are you mad?” The man hisses. “That’s the Crown Killer! She probably just wants to kill us herself!”

Lizzy pretends to pick her fingernails. “No thanks, I’m good. Already ate dinner.”

The woman shakes her head and steps forward. “I don’t care who you are. Thank you. Listen, I used to work here-the building that used to stand here.” She points up to the tower of peeling drywall and collapsing floors behind them. “There’s a safe behind a painting on the third floor. I can give you the code.”

“I didn’t help you for the money. But I won’t complain.” Lizzy cocks her head in Daud’s direction. “Come on. My friend and I will get you out of here.”

They all follow Daud, who leads them down to the docks. It’s only when he selects a decent rowboat left unattended and ushers them in that he dares to speak.

“Head upriver.” Daud points. “South of here is nothing but death. Stay away from the Watch.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice…” The man rolls his eyes, shaking his head.

“My brother and his husband live near the old distillery,” the woman tells her companion. “That’s where I’m going. You’re welcome to come, if you keep your trap shut.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the boss. I get it.”

The woman looks up at Lizzy, the oar laying across her lap. “Are you...really the Crown Killer?”

“How about I just say it’s complicated and leave it at that?”

“Hmm. Well, assassin or not, you’re one of the good ones.” She tips an imaginary hat. “Thank you. I hope I never cross paths with either of you again.”

“Same, lady.”

“Good luck.” Daud’s voice is small, but he’s still sure she heard him.

The woman locks eyes with him once as they begin to drift, then she immediately starts admonishing her companion. “No, pick up a damn oar. I’m not rowing both of us all the way to the Distillery District.”

“You’re a damn slave driver. _Fine.”_

They Blink away, Lizzy going to loot the safe, but Daud keeps an eye on their little boat until they disappear into the night.

 

* * *

 

Sokolov’s safehouse looks like a goddamn greenhouse, all glass and slanted roofs. Lizzy steers him to a rooftop overlooking the front door, wedged in between two taller buildings. They kneel and peer over the ridge, watching a Watch officer and an Overseer stand guard.

“I’m not asking to know what’s going on up there,” the guard scoffs, turning and walking towards the Overseer. “I was just asking if you’ve heard the screams too.”

The entrance is flagged by two long green banners, eerily familiar. Daud uses his spyglass and zeros in on the sigil. A bleeding heart flower, crossed with thorns.

 _‘You’d think an artist of her level would realize that red against green never works,’_ Billie remarks dryly.

Daud realizes that this must be Delilah’s banner. The Kaldwin family has their own sigil, their banners a soft teal with double swans and their coat of arms. Apparently this wasn’t good enough for Delilah. She needed her own.

He much prefers the refined dark red of the Lurk sigil, the orca done up in black and white circling a golden crown. More tasteful. And Billie looked good in red.

“Of _course_ I’ve heard them.” The Overseer stands with his hands behind his back, looking everywhere but his Watch companion. “I would be more worried if there were no screams.”

“What’s that, a riddle? Okay, I’ll bite. Why would _no_ screams worry you more?”

The Overseer sighs melodramatically. _“Because,_ it is our job to look after Hypatia and ensure she continues her work. The screams are evidence that she is continuing her work. Thus, the screams are evidence that I have done my job.”

What the fuck were they doing to these Overseers over in Whitecliff, leaving them with no sort of empathy or emotion? Daud would assume they were all drugged out of their minds if he hadn’t inspected Overseer outposts himself in the past.

“...Our job.” The guard’s voice shakes. “The...screams are evidence that _we_ have done our job.”

The Overseer turns to him, his mask betraying nothing. “You know, guardsman? I don’t care for you very much.”

Daud and Lizzy turn to each other, and it’s only when Lizzy adopts a low voice and whispers “buuuuurn” that Daud starts laughing into his sleeve.

“Okay, so-” He has to pause as a stray giggle passes his lips. “So tell me what you know about the safehouse.”

Lizzy swallows the last of her chuckles and scoots closer. “I wasn’t watching it that long, but it looks like a pretty tough nut to crack. Set it up like a fortress. No windows, or I guess the entire thing is a window. But even if we could break the glass, the slats are all metal. And even I’m not skinny enough to shimmy through those.”

“There’s an exterior door up on the roof,” Daud says, honing in on it with his spyglass.

“Yeah, that’s the greenhouse, I think. I don’t know if you can get downstairs from there.”

“If not, there should be another door with roof access.” Daud closes the spyglass and tucks it back into his coat. “Any obvious points of entry, besides the roof?”

“The front door.”

 _“Besides_ the place where twenty guards will be stationed, Stride.”

“You see down there?” Lizzy stretches over the ridge and points down to the water wheel. “Supposedly there’s an entrance to the wine cellar behind there. Some bozo got himself crushed swimming under the wheel, trying to steal the vintage I guess. Probably not even locked. Normal people can’t get in there without dying, apparently.”

The odd exterior of the safehouse had worried him at first-a detriment to invaders with abilities like Daud’s, and he wondered if the safehouse was specifically fortified against magic users. But while there’s an Overseer present, he doesn’t have a music box strapped to his chest. The buildings around the safehouse are perfect for Blinking and spying.

Of course, that could be intentional too. For Delilah’s witches to come check in on Hypatia’s progress.

He looks down, his eyes aglow. “That floodlight will give us away. There’s a team of guards right below us, watching the water.”

“Fuck, seriously? Well, I guess it’s good you got that creepy-eyes power.”

Daud takes hold of her hand, picking up the nearest piece of crumbled brick. “We’ll have to be quick. We’re passing right in front of those two at the door, and the guards will only be distracted for a second.”

“I can be quick.” Lizzy nods to herself.

Daud waits until the Overseer at the front entrance has turned to look over the river, the guard facing the stairs. He throws the brick over his shoulder and listens for it to land, watches the guards below. When they startle and turn to the noise, they move.

Daud pulls Lizzy out of sight as soon as they’re past the water wheel, flattening them both against the wall. Lizzy giggles, a bit too loud for Daud’s comfort.

“Fuck, being sneaky is almost as much of a rush as killing people!”

He checks the guards. They’ve already settled back into their posts. Didn’t see a thing. “Glad you’re having fun.”

True to Lizzy’s prediction, the door to the wine cellar is unlocked. Lizzy fawns over the barrels as Daud surveys the floor above them with Void Gaze.

“Now, this is my kind of mission,” she says, running her gloves over the labels. “Booze and chicks. Two of my favorite things.”

“You’re not drinking on the job, Lizzy.” He can’t quite make sense of his Gaze. He can see people and shit, but it all seems weirdly...bare. No walls.

“Fucking spoilsport,” Lizzy grumbles, but he does spy her slipping one bottle into her coat. Fine. He supposes she deserves it. But if she falls on it or something, Daud reserves the right to make fun of her while he’s stuck picking glass shards out of her side.

Daud shuts off Void Gaze. “Stick close to me. We’re going to have to get up on the pipes.”

They jump and scale the security railing instead of climbing the second half of the stairs, quickly Blinking to the pipeline that stretches down the wall. The ground floor was indeed weirdly bare-completely open, half of the floor seemingly unfinished. The actual apartment appears to be above them.

There’s...a lot of rats scurrying around. Not swarm-worthy amounts, but close.  But Daud shakes his head. There are rats everywhere in Dunwall. It’s hardly relevant to their mission.

There’s a staircase right above the one they came in on, but they’d surely be spotted. Really, if someone was on the landing right now, they’d just have to turn to see Daud and Lizzy crouching right there. Daud’s eyes sweep over the room as he shuffles down the pipe.

Furniture dumped all over the asphalt floor, strange machines and tables with all sorts of wires and knobs and junk. Daud realizes that this is all of Sokolov’s old stuff. Moved down here, but not thrown away. As if Delilah planned on Sokolov returning.

Well, whoever’s shit it is, none of it seems to provide good hiding spots.

“I don’t give a shit,” one officer says, standing by a display case. “Hypatia never leaves the safehouse. And I will never get a squad that doesn’t question my every order.”

Daud grimaces as he hears their words echo. This place is too empty, too bare to be any good swallowing up sound. He won’t be able to talk to Lizzy without the guards overhearing.

A guard examining Sokolov’s table of doodads nods, stroking his chin. “I understand that, sir, but…” He stands up straight, walking towards his superior. “It’s just that the other night she went missing, and I still don’t see how she got out.”

Ah, so another escape artist then? Just like his Billie. He can’t blame her-blame either of them. He’d die if he was stifled up like this.

“Maybe we’re not clear on this. If anyone _asks,_ the young lady never leaves the grounds unless it’s on official business for the Lady Regent.”

“Don’t you find it odd, though?” A third guard approaches, hands held out to the side. “Two squads round-the-clock to watch one woman?”

“She’s developing a plague cure, cadet.” The officer rubs his face.

“Yeah, but so are about three dozen other assholes at the Academy. I just don’t get what’s so special about Miss Hypatia. Er, Doctor Hypatia…”

The officer crosses the floor in a few short steps and seizes the guard by his shirt collar. “If someone questions it, just tell them that the Regent will have us flayed alive if anything happens to her!”

Is Hypatia one of Delilah’s lovers? It would certainly explain how heavily she’s guarded, despite Delilah investing very minimal effort into combating the plague. Obviously cares for her more than she ever did Billie.

“You saw those gallows she put up in front of the Tower,” the first guard says, his eyes wide. “Piss her off and you’ll find yourself up there right quick. Do you really want to end up like those Overseers? Like _Daud?”_

“Daud deserved it,” the other guard scoffs. “Did you guys ever meet the Empress? She was real cool. Could imagine hanging out and smoking a blunt with her.”

“The Empress was a goddamn bitch,” the officer mutters, fingering his mustache. “But she actually gave a damn. And she didn’t deserve what came to her.”

Daud turns back to Lizzy, pointing to the pipe and then making a circular motion, indicating they’ll need to go around. Fortunately, Lizzy seems to understand, and she just nods.

The pipe only extends to the next wall, so he and Lizzy have to drop to the floor and weave through iron columns and under giant tanks in order to cross the room. Thankfully, there’s another pipe set up against the wall perpendicular to the entrance, higher than the scaffolding around them. It’s no trouble at all to Blink up there.

Right away, Daud can spot two different points of entry that would have made their lives significantly easier. There’s a square cut out of the slats, right over the front door, and another one leading to what looks like the roof. He is so taking Lizzy off reconnaissance duty.

The Lizzy in question Blinks to the top of the...roof, it looks like, of the apartment proper. She looks at him oddly with her hands outstretched, but Daud takes a minute to survey the ground floor. Three guards and one Overseer, this one with a music box. No, four guards, including the one descending the stairs right under him. Probably more in the apartment.

...There’s trash everywhere. Rat droppings and scuff marks littering the floor. This place is a goddamn mess.

Sokolov’s dumping ground looks like if you crossed Jerome’s workshop with Delilah’s office during one of her painting binges. Ugh, just the memory of the smell of her paints is enough to turn his stomach. He can’t believe he left Billie alone with her. She liked watching Delilah paint. And he was stupid enough to think she was safe, alone in the Spymaster’s office.

Daud takes out his spyglass and zooms in on the painting set up on the easel. The backside of a woman, blonde hair pinned up in a bun. Yeah, that’s what he thought he saw. It takes a moment to focus in on the title of the painting, inscripted on the bottom of the frame. _The Obtuse Arguments of Lady Boyle._

Ick.

Was that Lydia, or one of her sisters? He’d have enough trouble telling them apart even if he saw the face, though he does feel by now that he could distinguish Lydia even from her twin. White pantsuit-Lydia seems to favor black clothing. All three Boyle sisters have that same shade of blonde hair, and it’s pinned up so he can’t even judge by length. Lydia’s hair, in the rare moments she lets it down, is actually quite long.

Should he bring it up? Ask her if she knew Anton Sokolov painted a picture of her ass and that it’s displayed in the basement of his house? Ugh. Dozens of men would have seen it. Daud finds it creepy.

Lizzy is angrily motioning him over, so Daud pockets the spyglass and Blinks up to the roof.

Then nearly tumbles over into the dining room.

There is no roof. Just wall and about eight feet of empty space above it. Lizzy has to grab the back of his jacket to keep him from falling on top a maid clearing off the table below.

He internally rolls his eyes over the design as he and Lizzy walk the tightrope that is the top of the wall. This was definitely modern architecture. Airy. _Cool._ It would make sense in a place like Karnaca.

Dunwall is cold. High ceilings just allow all the heat to escape. He disliked the Tower for that reason, but Dunwall Tower had thick walls and was well-insulated enough that cold didn’t seep in as easily. It was still chilly in the wintertime, but not freezing. With partial walls like this, no amount of hearths and stoves would keep these rooms warm.

Though it actually wasn’t that cold in here. Maybe that was the reason for the weird slat-glass exterior of the house, allow the sun to heat the place. Everyone was still going to freeze their balls off as soon as night hit, though.

Dining room. Kitchen, second maid. Hallway with one guard patrolling. Security room, both entrances covered by walls of light, which would be more effective if the tops weren’t all open like this was a damn dollhouse. No Hypatia. Daud has no idea what the woman actually looks like-he just looks for someone looking like they’re doing medicinal stuff. Would be either her or Vasco.

Should they take Vasco back to base with them as well? He doesn’t have any sad uncles waiting for him, but he’s a kid. Just a year older than his Thomas. Daud doesn’t want to leave him in Delilah’s clutches. Especially if she’s angered over Hypatia’s disappearance.

He looks up and-Lizzy is gone. Daud whips his head around, but she’s not on top of any of the walls.

Fuck, she’s like Billie was when she was a kid. Blink and they’re off. Daud had to threaten to attach a leash to her belt to get her to stay in his sight while in public. Can’t exactly attach a leash to Lizzy. Not easily, at least.

Well, finding Lizzy now is at least easier than finding Billie when she slipped off. Daud feels around for her using the Bond and finds her not fifteen feet away, behind another wall. Looks like a study of some sort. Ah, he sees the entrance. A few steps up from the security room, a covered walkway. Sure enough, that’s where Lizzy materializes a minute later. She gestures for him to follow her.

They Blink down and hide under the staircase in the security room, waiting for the one guard present to wander out.

Then Lizzy turns to him, pulling up her mask so she can whisper without her filter getting in the way. “This place is weird. I don’t understand rich people.”

Daud shakes his head. “I’ve been saying that for years.”

“I mean, I’ve been in the Tower. Too fancy-shmancy for my tastes, but at least the freaking walls make sense.” She shrugs.

“What did you find back there?”

“Library. And a lab in the next room over. I don’t fucking know where they sleep, but Vasco’s in there working on shit. Didn’t see Hypatia.”

He checks the room with Void Gaze, but he can’t see that far. “How do you know it was Vasco?”

“I mean, he’s a brown dude. We got two targets so I made a smart guess as to which one he is.”

“An educated guess, Elizabeth.”

“...You’re purposely trying to sound like Trimble aren’t you?”

Daud can’t hold in his smile, and he looks away. Lizzy punches him in the arm.

“Quit it. Seriously, if you turn into Trimble I’m obligated to put you out of my misery.”

“Sorry. I meant you’re sure it’s Vasco and not a test subject?” Daud lets his smile drop.

Lizzy makes a face. “Looked like he was doing something with beakers and shit. I dunno, he wasn’t wearing a nametag.”

Billie would know for sure. She’s been rather quiet, but Daud knows she’s always at his fingertips.

“So how do you want to do this?” He asks, leaning in. “Do you want to confront him now, or wait and see if Hypatia is willing to work with us?”

Lizzy bites her lip. “I don’t know. Honestly, either way I don’t think we should leave him here.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“Yeah, Kaldwin’s going to be right pissed.” Lizzy nods. “I kinda want to get to him while he’s still alone, but Dress-man’s niece is the priority here. I don’t want to risk her getting hurt if shit gets started.”

That was...incredibly mature thinking, coming from Lizzy. Daud nods and glances up. “So you want to split up, talk to them one-on-one?”

“If that sounds…”

They shut their mouths and press themselves against the wall as another guard strolls in, whistling a tune. Daud keeps a sleep dart ready just in case, but the guard wanders out again without even looking in their direction.

“If that sounds good to you,” Lizzy picks up again. “I can talk to Vasco. You should probably talk to Hypatia-even if you fuck that up, we’re for sure taking her back anyway. We’ll be able to question her again.”

“Are you implying I won’t be able to question her efficiently?”

“Daud, you’re cool and all, but you are a shit interrogator.”

Hypatia must be in the greenhouse, they figure, so Daud doubles back. There was that one exit point onto the roof, at the other end of the building. He could get up there easily, then it was just a matter of checking for-

“Up here, lieutenant.”

Daud stops and crouches as a maid steps into the hallway. She motions to follow, her heels clicking together. A Watch officer steps into view.

A female Watch officer.

Daud blinks. The long red hair woven into a braid, the thin nose and smattering of light freckles. He knows her. He _knows_ her. But where?

“Do you want Lady Alexandria to meet you down here, or…”

Then the woman holds up her hand. Opens her mouth. And Daud knows.

“No, don’t bother her. I’m just here to inspect her security measures.”

He recognizes that voice. The same high and sickly-sweet voice that sang to him, strumming a guitar.

It’s the girl from his dream.

 

* * *

 

She has company: a dusty-skinned man with pointed ears in a Lower Guard uniform, and a barrel-chested Overseer sans music box. They squeeze in behind her, shuffling into the dining room. The maid continues to stand at the doorway.

“So, I suppose I’ll leave you to it, then.” She fidgets with her apron. “Lieutenant, um…”

“Foster,” the woman says. “Lieutenant Foster. Just go about your duties, ma’am. We should be out of your hair within the hour.”

The maid curtsies and scurries away as fast as her little ballet flats can take her.

“An hour?” The Lower Guard groans, flopping onto a chair. “We have to be here that long?”

Daud almost worries for the guard’s life, but he’s cut off by Lieutenant Foster scoffing. “Why bother? We’ll slip out during the diversion. Fuckers probably won’t even remember us.”

“Can I start the fire this time?”

“Didn’t you want to try out one of those howling bombs you made?”

“Are you sure that attracting attention to ourselves is the wisest course of action?” The Overseer rocks on his feet, his voice husky and his accent heavily Morlean. “Might I remind you that, if my brothers discover who I am, they will _kill us all?”_

Lieutenant Foster is already at the bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines. “They won’t know shit. Guards are stupid fucks, like flies caught in the light.”

“I’ll just feel much better once we’re out of here.”

“Then shut the fuck up and _help me look,_ you dingdong.”

“Calm your tits, Lee.” The guard stands up, holding his hands out to his side. “They’ll kill us if they find out who we are too, and we don’t get to hide behind masks!”

His accent is also distinctly non-Dunwall. Serkonan, definitely. Karnacan? Rulfio and Rinaldo have similar accents, but they’ve been away from Karnaca for nearly half their lives. Accents fade.

Daud leans in closer. These guys are clearly not actually Watch officers. Lieutenant-smart role to play. High enough in the order that most guards won’t question her, but also not high enough for her name to be well-known. But who _was_ she, then?

Billie comes alive in his hands, almost startling him off the wall.

 _‘Oh, what are you doing, you silly girl?’_ The smile in her voice is evident. _‘Getting into trouble, as always. My sweet Deirdre.’_

Daud stares, slackjawed.

This was Deirdre? _Billie’s_ Deirdre? But...she…

“Check the cabinets, fuckos.” Deirdre says, standing on her tiptoes to read the higher shelves. “Said it’d be in here.”

She’s supposed to be dead! That’s what Daud had always thought, anyways, though he never said it to Billie’s face. Billie had tried to find her. The Emperor even had Martin try his hand at tracking this girl down. Had sketches done- _that’s_ why she looked so familiar then, he just didn’t recognize her all grown up-and had the Watch keep an eye out for her. Billie had wanted to bring her to the Tower. Give her friend everything they didn’t have on the streets.

And this girl, _Deirdre_ never came forward. Let Daud think she was dead on the streets. Let Billie die not knowing what had happened to her.

And for what? To pursue a life of crime, apparently. _Bitch._

“Okay, I can’t reach this shit.” Deirdre points her thumb back. “Lee? You wanna give it a try?”

“Oh, I see how it is.” The guard-impersonator puts his hands on his hips as the Overseer- _Lee_ steps forward. “You love me when you need someone to kill a guard without getting blood on their uniform, but when it comes to doing _manly_ shit, you ask-”

“Paolo, you’re like, two feet tall.” Deirdre deadpans.

A scandalized noise emits from Paolo’s mouth. “I am at a perfectly normal height!”

Lee speaks in an incredibly bored tone. “You are a literal midget.”

“Says the giant.”

“You’re only proving yourself to be an imbecile of the highest order.”

“Well...you’re a bag of dicks!”

“Oh my god.” Deirdre holds her hands to her temples. “Just fuck each other already and get it over with.”

“That is disgusting and I am insulted you had the indecency to say it.”

“Get fucked, you’re not fooling anyone in here.” Deirdre rolls her eyes. “This team might as well be called the flat and the fairies.”

...This woman could _never_ meet Lizzy.

They rifle through drawers and shelves in silence, and Daud watches them curiously. He has to get to Hypatia, he knows. But he has so many questions. He takes Billie out in the hopes that she might hold some answers.

 _‘She’s spent so many years angry,’_ Billie says when he aims her at Deirdre’s back. _‘Now she regrets the time they could have spent together. She’s forgiven. And...hopes she can be as well.’_

What the fuck was she mad at Billie for? For not being able to find her after that street fight? For having an Emperor’s blood flowing through her veins? Billie _tried_ to find her.

Apparently, Deirdre didn’t care to be found.

Who were her companions though? What were they looking for, cure research? The only criminal he knows of that would care is Slackjaw, so are they working for him? How did an Overseer end up in Bottle Street?

 _‘Ambition. That is what I sense in him. He could have been High Overseer one day.’_ Billie laughs. _‘He sees the Outsider’s influence everywhere. Only lately has he considered that there are greater evils that threaten the people of the Empire.’_

There really isn’t. And fuck if this is the day where Daud finds himself agreeing with Overseers.

Deirdre turns, grabbing a fig from a bowl in the middle of dining table and digging her thumb into the middle. She pops a piece into her mouth and tears apart the rest, scattering it on the floor. Paolo tosses a loose pen at her and tells her to quit feeding the rats.

The Serkonan boy, he can understand how he got twisted up in this more easily than the other two. Most Karnacan immigrants to Dunwall end up in the gangs, or occasionally as house servants. But he aims Billie at him just in case.

 _‘He’s clever. Someone who gets things done.’_ Billie sounds appreciative. _‘Can be vicious, but there is a heart under there. Care for the common people. And a love for his best friend.’_

He assumes that’s Deirdre, though Billie doesn’t sound especially jealous when she says it. Was this cruel? Asking Billie to crack open her friend’s skull and peer into her thoughts?

Billie doesn’t protest it, but Daud figures he should still put the Talisman away.

Deirdre stands up, fingers at her collar and her teeth worrying her lip. Daud goes to squeeze, to let the Talisman disappear into smoke.

_‘I promise, I’ll make this all right.’_

Deirdre gasps. Something pink falls from her fingers, jangling on a silver chain around her neck. And then her head snaps up, right to where Daud is crouching.

Daud wastes not a moment. He Blinks to the opposite wall before Deirdre’s eyes have fully settled on him.

“What?” Paolo stands up and turns around. “Dee? You alright? You saw something?”

Deirdre is silent. Daud’s hands shakes as he waits. But then she shakes her head.

“No, sorry. Guess I’m still fucked up. Was up all night-”

“Hello!” The group jumps to attention as a dark-skinned man strolls in, the blue of his coat complimenting the purple blotch that stretches across his left cheek and eye. “I’m Hypatia’s assistant. She’s a little busy at the moment, so she can’t come down to talk.”

Shit. Well, looks like Lizzy is going to have to wait to have her chat.

“Oh. That’s fine,” Deirdre says, her stiff accent taking over. “We don’t need to meet with her, or you really, you can...do you need some ice for your face or something…?”

Vasco shakes his head, his smile still pasted on. “Took a spill in the lab, earlier this week. You know how it is. I’m a bit of klutz!”

Daud slips out, crouching down on the rooftop. He’s still clutching Billie in his hands, too afraid to try and put her away, lest she comment again. And Deirdre _hears her_ again.

“Do you mind explaining some things to me?” Daud asks in a harsh whisper. He almost adds ‘young lady’ at the end because he knows that pisses her off, but he refrains.

Billie is quiet. Daud grits his teeth and tries again.

“How is she alive? I _saw_ her on that boat. She was there.”

 _‘As were you,’_ she states calmly. _‘And is your heart not beating?’_

That’s...true. Whether he likes it or not, he still wakes and moves and his blood is still warm in his veins. Despite the world’s best efforts, Daud is still alive.

But he _shouldn’t_ be.

_‘We are all of us caught between worlds. We dip our toes into the Void, only to be snatched away from the waters.’_

So that was it? They were all supposed to be dead. He can’t say for Deirdre, or Sokolov, but Daud can agree with that judgement. He was supposed to be executed over a month ago. And the explosion, that fall, it should have killed him. It was only some weird anomaly that he was still alive. That they were all still alive.

Well, Billie is dead. But she is still trapped between worlds, in her own way.

“What were you trying to tell me?” Daud whispers, his lips close to the Talisman’s surface. “Why us three, specifically?”

_‘I am the captain at the helm. I choose who boards my ship.’_

“But you’re not...” He wets his mouth, trying to make sense of it in his head. “You’re not _with_ them. You’re with me. We’re...”

_‘You hold the beating heart of my essence. But my revival has left tears in this reality. Hollow places, people and objects, where my voice echoes through the cracks.’_

Daud swallows. “So when you speak to me, they can hear you?”

_‘No. I speak to all of you.’_

Daud is quiet. Then he breathes out. Lets the Talisman disappear into smoke.

He needs to get what he came here for.

 

* * *

 

There’s one lone guard patrolling the walkway around the greenhouse. Watching the sunset. Not paying even a lick of attention. Why would he worry, when his post is seventy feet in the air? Daud fires a single sleep dart into his forehead and he flops against the railing.

He finds, yanking the empty dart out of the man’s head, that with every person he passes over, every life he spares, that voice is getting dimmer. The voice that asks him why he’s bothering, when his only goal is to eliminate potential threats. That killing them would accomplish the same end.

Good. Maybe one day, that voice will be silent. Daud almost laughs as the thought.

“I now turn my hopes to Formula 25, which has...potential, when used in conjunction with high heat therapy…”

Hypatia is too absorbed in her audio recording to even notice the door open, Daud slipping in and shutting it gently behind him. He crouches behind rows of planter boxes, peering at Hypatia’s back and her wispy, shoulder-length brown hair.

They’re alone in the greenhouse, aside from a woman in a cage at the far end, which Daud saw earlier through Void Gaze. The woman doesn’t stir, laying on a cot with a blanket thrown over her, but she’s alive. At the moment, at least.

“The high temperature should...hmm...what was it…” The sound of fluttering papers, Hypatia paging through her notes. “I wrote it down somewhere. I...can’t remember exactly what it did to the alkaline properties, but after the failure of Formula 12-17, the idea occurred to me…”

Daud slips closer, watching Hypatia carefully. She’s not a large woman, but not a small one either. His height, no, slightly taller. He hopes he doesn’t end up having to carry her out.

 _‘Is she a prisoner?’_ Billie asks. _‘She feels trapped here, like she is under a microscope.’_

Anyone would, with all these guards watching her every move.

“Studying Anton Sokolov’s notes, and more recently experimenting with Piero’s version of the elixir, I’m...close to something.” Hypatia turns, tapping her lip. “If only the Regent allowed me to return to the Academy, consult with my colleagues, I’m sure they could make advances where I’ve stalled. Vasco has been a godsend, but even his presence can’t make up for the black-outs…”

She shakes her head, running a hand through her hair.

“And every time it happens, whether I lose a few hours or a few days, that’s progress lost. Could I have finished the cure by now, if I could keep my thoughts straight? Every setback means lives lost.” She sighs. “Subject 312 continues to deteriorate at the expected pace. She should pass by mid-morning tomorrow, at the latest.”

There’s a click, and the punchcard rolls out. Hypatia makes a few notes while Daud creeps up behind her, wondering how exactly to initiate this. His scarf is up, so she won’t recognize him, but that hardly makes for a reassuring appearance.

“Hello?”

“Ah, good morning!” Then Hypatia turns, and Daud catches a glimpse of a wide smile on her face as she walks towards the cage. “How are you feeling, ma’am?”

Daud shoos a rat away from his boot. Rats, even up here.

“Awful...where am I?” The test subject sits up in her cot, her upper body curled around her stomach. “Who are you?”

“I’m Alexandria Hypatia, I’m...doing medicinal research here.”

“Oh, Void.” The test subject whimpers. “Do I have the plague? Please, ma’am, I-I don’t wanna die!”

“ _No one_ should die of the plague,” Hypatia sighs.

_‘She hurts for them. But she is ridiculed for her soft heart, tormented by her...sister? I’m sorry. It’s all mingled together.’_

“You’re doing perfect,” Daud whispers, regarding Hypatia with a suspicious eye. The Dressmaker only has one niece. He’d mentioned nephews, both passed away now. Alexandria shouldn’t have a sister.

Unless she was talking about a witch. They called themselves sisters. Or...a half-sister, from her father. Daud feels a little silly for considering witches before infidelity.

“Why have you locked me up? Like I’m an _animal?”_

“The...cage is for my own protection. Others have tried to attack me, and my assistant...you understand, right?”

The test subject is silent.

“I’ll have my guards release you tomorrow morning,” Hypatia continues, smoothing out her vest. “Everything is going to be okay. And thank you, for you help.”

“But the pain. Can’t you give me anything for the pain?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t give you any painkillers of sorts…” She turns, rifling through a drawer. “It could skew my results. The strongest I can give you is a tincture to help you sleep. Just relax.”

A sleeping tincture wasn’t going to do shit, if her goal was to help this woman pass away peacefully. Daud slides in another sleep dart and hits the woman in the belly while Hypatia’s back is turned.

Hypatia stands up, confused, as the test subject flops onto her back. Daud stands behind her, giving her several feet of space.

“Alexandria?”

“Yes?” She turns, eyes alert and blinking. Daud’s next words fall from his mouth.

He’s seen her before. The woman Luca Abele had been with. She had been at Dunwall Tower the day Billie died.

“Are you one of my bodyguards?” She asks, smiling sheepishly as she sets the bottle of tincture down. “I’m sorry...I-I-I should know that.”

“I’m here to help you,” Daud says, swallowing the lump in his throat. She may very well recognize his voice, but that’s not a concern. She’ll learn his identity soon anyway.

Hypatia steps forward and, without warning, brings her hands up to grab at Daud’s scarf.

“Do you-” He grabs her wrists and gently pushes them down. “-cover your face because you were hurt?”

“Something like that.”

“Injuries...far more common than anyone likes to admit.” She turns, pushing a stack of books off a nearby stool. They clatter to the ground. Hypatia doesn’t even flinch. “Avoidable. Most of them.”

“I’m not here for treatment.” Daud takes a knee, looking up at Hypatia’s dream-like expression. “Your uncle sent me.”

“My uncle?” She blinks.

“Yes. The one who makes dresses.” He really should have asked the guy what his name was, at some point. “Him and I have some...friends, that can keep you safe.”

It’s not the strongest, but Daud can see their resemblance. Alexandria has the same coloring as the Dressmaker, brown hair and warm skintone. Same eyeshape. Both even have hazel eyes, though Alexandria’s hue tilts slightly more blue.

“Oh, I’m...perfectly safe.” She laughs, moving off the stool and meandering away. “Too safe, sometimes. Feels like I can’t stub my toe without a team of guards swooping in to check on me.”

“We also need your help. We need information on Delilah’s coven.”

“Her what?” She pauses at the next table, blinking at him owlishly. “I assure you, I take no part in witchcraft...not that I’d judge anyone who does, it’s just...that’s not me…”

 _‘Tread_ **_carefully,_ ** _Father. You are in great danger.’_

Of course he’s in danger. He’s always in danger. But Billie knows that.

“You...know nothing about a coven.” Daud says carefully. “Does the name ‘Ashworth’ ring any bells?”

No one’s up here besides them. If witches saw him enter the greenhouse, why have they not descended on him already? Why let him get so close?

Was...was Billie talking about Hypatia? How could _she_ be any threat to him?

Though it’s true that he can see the muscles of Hypatia’s forearms, well-toned and stretching the fabric of her sweater where she’s pushed her sleeve up. Shoulders broad, thighs thick, she’s in better shape than most natural philosophers. Probably due to the parkour habit she apparently has.

Still, though, she’s a natural philosopher. They weren’t fighters. Hypatia isn’t even armed. She shouldn’t be dangerous to someone like _Daud_ in the slightest.

“That...does sound familiar…” Hypatia begins digging her bare hands into a dissected rat, blood staining her fingers. “I’m sorry, I’ve been...forgetting things. I feel like I should be able to help you…”

“It’s fine if you don’t remember right now. We’ll have time to go over it.”

Hypatia shakes her head. “I just...I feel like I’m constantly at the brink of something, like the answer is right there. Under glass, and I just can’t put my finger on it…”

She hands something to Daud without looking up at him, and Daud’s hand accepts it automatically. Whatever it is, it’s squishy and pink and _gross._ He deposits in on the side of the desk with a grimace.

“Maybe you’ll have an easier time clearing your head at your uncle’s.”

“Perhaps, I-” She whips her head around. “Is someone calling me?”

Daud’s hand on her forearm, pulling her back. “No. No one’s here except us.”

“I didn’t used to...lose things like this.” She laughs. “I’m sorry, something demands my attention…”

“Yes. _Me.”_ Daud keeps his hold on her arm. She doesn’t take much force to redirect, as she seems to instantly forget she was walking away in the first place.

“Something’s...wrong,” she says, weighing her words carefully. “Here. My sleep is...disturbed, and I see a face in my dreams...like she’s painted my portrait, but twists my expression…” Hypatia shakes her head. “Why would anyone do that?”

“Who painted you? Delilah?” Daud leans in closer. “Alex, she’s hurting you. We’ll protect you from her.”

“No, she’s…” Hypatia opens her mouth, her eyes glazing over. “Don’t you know her? I can hear her...from down in a well. The killings, so much blood...so much _meat…”_ She drops the viscera from her fingers. “Who is that calling me?!”

She moves away quickly, leaving Daud at a loss for words.

She’s...alright, disturbed. What was the term called for it? Hearing voices, delusions...Trimble would know. He’ll help her, when Daud brings her back.

“I wonder what she would say about this…” Hypatia rambles, moving around equipment at random. “Helping you. I...I like helping people.” She moves to another table, her back turned to Daud. “I thought I could help Dunwall...I keep telling myself it’ll all be worth it in the end, that the cure will save so many lives, but for now I just feel like a doctor of death…”

Daud readies the sleep dart. He’d hoped she’d come along willingly. He feels especially uncomfortable carrying around unconscious women, moving them against their wills. But she’ll see reason, back at base. He’ll apologize. She’ll understand.

“You said you were looking for your…” Hypatia says to the wall. “Who was it? Your niece? No, your daughter? I’m sorry. My memory is failing me.”

“It’s fine,” Daud says, and raises his wristbow.

“Daud!”

The door slams open. Lizzy sprints towards him, her mask off and her brown hair swinging wildly.

“What the fuck?” Daud hisses. Behind her, he sees Vasco step inside and closes the door behind him, a large syringe clutched in his hands. She’s baring her face _and_ giving his name away, and Daud is pissed.

Lizzy seizes him by the elbow and pulls. “Get away from her. _Now.”_

“What?” Daud blinks as Lizzy steps in between him and Hypatia, casting a nervous glance back at her and letting her hand linger on his arm. “Why? Stride, I was just about to knock her out!”

“Don’t do that.” Vasco’s eyes are wide, hands shaking. “Outsider’s ass, thank the Void we caught you.”

Thank the Void that Hypatia is seemingly deaf to their conversation now. She’s continuing on with her fiddling and mumbling like nothing is amiss. Which, for her, might be accurate.

Daud turns to Vasco and pulls his scarf down. “Look, I know you don’t know us, but we’re not the bad guys here.”

“He knows.” Lizzy tugs on his arm again. “Daud, he’s on our side. He _wants_ us to take Hypatia out of here.”

Daud blinks, staring between the two. “Then why…”

“Because Hypatia’s the goddamn Butcher!” Lizzy hisses.

The…

Huh?

Daud stands there, eyes locked on Hypatia’s turned back while his brain reboots.

“She’s the _what_ now?”

“The Dunwall Butcher!” Lizzy throws her hands out. “You know, the one that’s been ripping apart Dunwall for the past year?”

“I know who you’re talking about, but...what?”

“It’s. _Her.”_ Lizzy aggressively point. “But it’s _not_ her. I don’t know how to explain it…”

“Maybe I can.” Vasco wets his lips before jumping into it. “Alexandria has...well, what I’ve been calling a ‘disassociated identity’. A second personality, a second _person_ living inside her head.”

“That…” Daud leans back. “You do realize that sounds absolutely ridiculous, right?”

“I know! Trust me, I know! But listen to me.” His eyes flick over to her and back. “Whoever this person is, she’s always there. Riding along in her mind. Hypatia doesn’t know she’s there, but she sees everything and can take her over. Make Hypatia...sleep, for lack of a better word.” He pauses to suck in air. “Then this person, she commits these horrible crimes. And Hypatia has no idea. She thinks she has a fainting problem!”

That sounds even more implausible, but then, Daud talks to whale gods and dead Empresses and claims to be able to slow down time at will. So he’s not one to talk.

“So...why can’t I sleep-dart her?” Daud motions. “Because it seems like that would be the safest way to deal with her.”

“Because a sleep dart won’t _work_ on her!” Vasco holds up his syringe. “I’m not entirely sure how this other personality is fed-it’s in part due to a prototype cure she developed long before this all began, but I’m positive that there’s witchcraft at play. I’ve tried knocking her out with chloroform, darts and tincture, everything. I’ve seen her take bullet and stab wounds to the chest.” He points. “Hurting her in any way will just awaken this other personality. And _she_ can’t be brought down easily. I’ve developed this, a _very strong_ tranquilizer synthesized specifically for Hypatia’s unique body chemistry. It’s the _only_ thing you can use to subdue her.”

“And what happens when she wakes up?” Daud stares at him. “If she’s insane-”

“She’s _not_ insane!” Vasco shakes his head. “She’s sick. Hypatia, she’s a good person. Really. She’s worth saving, and I’ve been working on a cure that will expel the toxins of the old serum.”

“And where is this cure?” Lizzy turns to him. “We didn’t get to that part.”

Vasco looks sheepish. “I haven’t...the current formula I have calls for the blood of a bloodfly-infested human-”

Daud shudders.

“-but, you know, those are in short supply in Dunwall at this time of year.”

“So.” Lizzy puts her hands on her hips. “Your plan right now is to knock Hypatia out, have us restrain her back at base somehow, and then wait a few months until you might be able to cure her? You know, if the bloodflies even migrate up to this rat hole this year?”

“Or I could go south and find a nest…”

“And break quarantine? What if Hypatia gets free? We’re hiding the goddamn Emperor, we can’t put him at risk like that! And-oh fuck, did you really not close the fucking door?!”

“Sorry, sorry…” Vasco runs to close the door the entire way. Lizzy huffs and folds her arms.

“If that crazy bitch hurts any of my friends-”

Daud waves his hands to break up their argument. “Okay, so this is what I’m getting. Whatever the status of the cure is, we can’t kill her anyway. So why is this even a debate?”

“You really want the goddamn Butcher back home?” Lizzy stares at him. Daud checks over her shoulder, but Hypatia is still merrily working away. “Close to our friends? To _Thomas?”_

Well, no. He doesn’t want her anywhere near their base. Doesn’t want her near people he likes. Thomas, Thalia, Rose, and Reed are all underage too, and he hates the idea of putting four literal children in danger-five, if he counts the one in utero. And honestly, Daud doesn’t want to let _anyone_ near Thomas most days.

But Hypatia is...she seems almost sweet, like this. Harmless. Daud knows that looks can be deceiving, but with Billie’s insight, he knows Hypatia to be genuine. The only danger comes from triggering the change. They can avoid that.

And if it puts him one step closer to Delilah’s throat…

“If we leave her here, she’ll just continue butchering people. And don’t forget, we made a promise to her uncle.”

“You mean _you_ made a promise to her uncle.”

“And I keep my promises, Stride.” Alexandria is the only family the Dressmaker has left. There’s no way Daud can hurt her, knowing that. He turns to Vasco and holds his hand out. “Give that to me. I’ll get her knocked out.”

Vasco looks down at the syringe like he forgot he was holding it, while Lizzy huffs and bumps her hip. “Fucking bipolar asshole. I-”

Then Lizzy staggers to the side, sliding her feet apart to regain her balance. A dart of the faintest green sticking out of her neck.

In the same moment, a shadow falls on Hypatia’s form. Daud has no time to call out, even to blink, before the figure is on her. Pushes her to the floor. And Vasco screams “No!” as the assassin pulls Hypatia back by the hair and slides their blade into her throat.

Not even a second. The assassin still kneeling over Hypatia’s body, Lizzy blinking in confusion, her fingers just now coming up to feel for whatever’s pinching her. Simultaneous. Perfectly in sync.

“Daud.”

His sword already in hand, Daud whirls around. And the rest of the world falls away.

A woman in black. Gold on the clasps of her jacket. A mask with the face of a bird. The Crow Queen holds a crossbow in her left hand, another sleep dart already loaded in.

“We must speak with you.”

 

* * *

 

The stale remnants of his last breath slide out between his teeth, his lungs deflating like the slowest of balloons. Not even a blink. He is completely and utterly frozen, his fingers in a death grip around his sword. It’s all that exists. Him and her. _Her._

Then there’s a scream. And a crash.

The sound of shattering glass breaks the illusion. It’s still just them, but also his sword and her sword and the floor between them. There’s sound and air and blood to be spilt. She’s all he sees.

And he moves forward.

“Daud, I-” Then she has to move, dodge the blade aiming down at her heart. She backs away, ducking to avoid having her head taken clean off. “Daud, listen to me!”

She raises her blade. _The_ blade. The hilt white and inlaid with thin scripts of gold, clutched in her black gloves. The blade a gleaming silver.

It’s so clean he could see his reflection. How can it be clean? Daud knows the blood that’s seeped into the metal. That blade has been inside of her. Broken her skin and pierced her organs, drew her blood out. He sees it on the edge, soaked in it. Billie’s blood, glinting off the metal.

Daud brings his own down on it. She staggers, and Blinks away before he can slice open her chest.

He whirls around. There’s chaos here-flying objects and screaming and broken things, but it’s like rain on the windowpane. Him and her, their fight, that’s all that matters.

The Crow Queen is standing on a shelf, knees bent and the toes of her boots pointed towards him. She shoots off her crossbow, aiming at Daud’s leg. He avoids it and the Crow Queen melts away, appearing again a few feet in front of him.

“You must give us a moment!” she cries, parrying his attack. Daud yells, without words and restraint, and delivers another blow.

She kicks out, quickly, catching her foot in his side. Daud isn’t stunned for even a moment. He doesn’t feel the pain. There’s nothing but her. Her and the blood running beneath her jugular, her and her hands and her blade. And he can’t stop until it’s all cold, ripped apart and laid out on the floor.

The Crow Queen initiates this attack, jumping forward and flips her sword around in her fist, then lands a punch squarely in the side of his jaw. Daud sweeps his sword out to slice her midsection in half, but she turns to smoke.

He catches her out of the corner of his eye, descending on him with the hilt of her blade aimed down at him. He blocks the attack, and she’s gone again. There, dancing on the balls of her feet, brandishing her sword and holding her hand up, as if to halt him. “If you allow us to explain-”

With another yell, Daud stabs out at her. She sidesteps and parries another attack.

“We have mutual goals, you’ll want-”

He jumps forward. Strikes again, no rhythm or tact to his bladework. His skill is a mockery, no good to anyone anymore. All he needs is one strike, one good hit, and she will be just as dead. He can hear her words-but he doesn’t care. Her still-beating heart is a betrayal of all that’s good in the world, the fact that her eyes blink and her fingers bend and her blood flows warm while Billie…

The Crow Queen attempts to say something else, holds up her free hand in an attempt to talk him down. Daud strikes down with all his might.

“YOU KILLED HER!”

She staggers back. Daud brings his sword down again. She blocks it with the same sword she sheathed in Billie’s stomach, all those months ago.

She put that sword through her and let her warmth drain out of her, let her grow cold on the stones, they stopped her heart and let her die and they killed her they _killed her._

The Crow Queen turns her head, and Daud takes the moment to reverse his grip and stab her through the chest. It gives and his blade cuts into nothing but air. Then there’s an arm around his neck, thin but strong, retracting and choking and

And Daud slams his head back with enough force to make the Queen stagger, and he whirls around and sweeps her feet out from under her.

Thrusts his sword down and it pierces the tile. Something glass hits him in the shoulder, shattering on contact.

“Daud, I understand your anger!” She ducks to avoid his blade. “I ask for only a few minutes! Please-” She twists and the tip of Daud’s blade cracks the plaster wall. “I am not the threat at hand!”

“You killed her!”

“And she will kill us all if-”

“You _killed_ her!”

He attacks. She blocks. They fight and they fight and Daud knows nothing else because she killed her, she put a sword through his Billie and wouldn’t even let Daud hold her, didn’t give him the chance to say goodbye. She died young and cold and alone and Daud wasn’t able to hold her hand and make passing easier for her because they ripped her away and threw her in the ocean. They stopped her heart and ruined his and Daud will _tear theirs out of their chests._

Daud raises his sword for another blow and-

And a train hits him. His heart speeds and his stomach turns and there’s Lizzy in his head screaming and Calling to him and _Daud I am going to fucking die because you’re a goddamn idiot._

The room comes back into focus. The tiles on the floor, the smell of soil and alcohol and disease. The broken glass, the upturned furniture.

And whatever possessing Alexandria Hypatia leaps over a table and knocks Lizzy onto her back.

“Not much meat on your bones,” she seethes. “Not enough to be worth it. Let’s _play,_ little riverwoman.”

“How about _no?”_ Lizzy crosses her blade in front of her chest, holding Hypatia off. “Daud! Help!”

But the Rat King is the one who stoops, wraps his arms around Hypatia’s shoulders and throws her to the side. Lizzy Blinks away and appears again, standing upright, on top of the table that Vasco has incidentally chosen to hide under.

Daud fits a bolt into his wristbow and sends it into Hypatia’s shoulder. She turns. And _snarls._

Hair a tousled mess. Skin paler than a corpse. And ice-blue eyes that almost seem to glow.

“You two made up and joined the game, then?” She deftly weaves out of the Rat King’s reach, jumping forward. “Good. It was getting boring.”

Another bolt. This one misses, as does the knife the Crow Queen throws at her.

Hypatia pitches and moves towards the Crow Queen at an alarming speed, and she barely Blinks away in time. Hypatia growls and rounds on the Crow Queen in an instant.

“You smell like ink and parchment, but the scent of death clings to your boots.” Hypatia sneers, clawing out at the Crow Queen’s face. “You’ve waded through the dead waters, haven’t you? You dirty girl.”

The Rat King uses his wind power to knock her off balance, and the Crow Queen shoots off a sleep dart. Daud runs forward and slides, aiming to take Hypatia off her feet.

He succeeds, but slamming her head against the floor does absolutely nothing to stun her. She grabs his wrists, pulls herself up and smashes her skull into his with such force Daud actually sees stars. Then she pushes him onto his back.

“And you, my pup?” Her hands at his shoulders, pushing him down. “Hmm, you smell like…”

She digs her nose into the crux of his neck and inhales. “You smell of engine grease and new fabric. You carry the scent of flowers in your robes, and blood in your teeth. There’s children too, you’re around children…”

There’s a sound like wind whipping through a corridor, and Hypatia loses her grip on his lapels. Daud unfreezes and scrambles backwards.

The Crow Queen is holding her hand up, the Mark glowing beneath her glove. She’s...tethering Hypatia, much like Daud’s Pull ability, but by manipulating the wind. She looks over to Daud, then jerks her thumb up. “Off the floor!”

Hypatia doesn’t remain tethered for long. She breaks free, but Daud and the Crow Queen have both Blinked to different tables. Out of the corner of his eye, Daud sees the Rat King raise his Marked hand.

And the floor beneath Hypatia comes alive with rats.

Wriggling, chittering mass of fur and skinless tails. Daud is nearly startled right off his table.

How is he doing that? Stupid question. Why would he _want_ to? Could he do that before the plague? Is that where the name comes from? What the _fuck,_ and oh god, their tails are wiggling, that’s so gross and what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-

The rats, though they’re disgusting, don’t seem to be interested in attacking Hypatia. She stands there and looks down at them in almost confusion.

“Bombs away, fuckers!”

Daud sees just a flash of the bottle as it arcs through the air, shattering against Hypatia’s forehead. A hazy cloud appears around her and all the rats go stiff. Daud has to nod in appreciation of Lizzy’s aim.

“I told you, you have to-”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard!” Lizzy drops to her knees, dipping her arm under the table and extending her fingers to Vasco’s cowering form. “Give it to me!”

Hypatia crosses the floor at a speed that should not be possible, and she leaps towards Lizzy and slams into her so hard she’s knocked clear off the table.

“You’re a delicious morsel…” Hypatia whispers into her ear.

Daud is still feet away, too far, too far when Hypatia is so _close_ to Lizzy. But he raises his hand anyway. “Get away from her!”

He _Pulls._ But Hypatia is barely startled.

Lizzy tries to back away, but Hypatia grabs her ankle and pulls her back. “Aw, he cares for you, does he?” She breathes against Lizzy’s ear, loud and ragged and altogether insatiable. “You two can be my playthings. He can watch while I cut off your legs.”

“That’s too kinky for me!” Lizzy hits the side of her head. “Get off!”

Daud reaches them as soon as the Rat King does, and they both seize one of Hypatia’s arms. Haul her off Lizzy.

Hypatia kicks her legs, but they both hold fast. Lizzy jumps up and runs to Vasco.

“Hold her still.” The Crow Queen’s voice, followed by the click of a gun. “Got a clear shot.”

Daud whips his head back to protest, and Hypatia senses the distraction. She barrels into him, pulling her arm free from the Rat King and swiping it over Daud’s chest.

Something’s bleeding. He doesn’t know what, but it stings. Daud grips the side of a nearby table as the floor seems to pitch. Hypatia turns and throws herself at the Rat King, and he elicits the only sound Daud’s ever heard from him: a single, deep grunt.

“Serkonan spices and smoke, crayon shavings under your fingernails...and _power.”_ Her fingernails actually tear ribbons into his coat, leaving the Rat King scrambling for his blade as she paws at his sleeve. “I smell magic in your blood, deep in your bones! They said I could taste the flesh of the Marked! They promised me!”

The Rat King shoves her away and disappears in a flash of blue. Hypatia turns, snarling, and the Crow Queen steps in. Raises her hand and Pulls with her strange not-Pull power.

As expected, it pewters out in a moment, but then Daud is there reciprocating with his own Pull. It takes over, Hypatia is off-balanced, if for only a split second.

It’s tiring, risky work, and it drains Daud’s mana like no other. He and the Crow Queen are nowhere in sync, so every time Hypatia regains her footing they just have to pray the other catches her in time.

Lizzy staggers to her feet, the syringe in her hands and a limp in her side.She’s far, far too far away to reach them in any timely manner. But her eyes light up when she sees Hypatia’s predicament, and she winds her arm back. “Rat dude, catch!”

And she throws.

“Inject it at the base of her neck!” Vasco calls from below the table. “At her spine!”

The Rat King catches the syringe with one hand and disappears in a flurry of blue. Then he descends on Hypatia for the second time, jamming the needle in between her shoulder blades and shoving the plunger down.

“No no no!” Hypatia screeches, collapsing in a heap and clawing at her head. Shaking as if having a fit. “Not back to sleep!”

But the convulsions end. Hypatia goes still.

Asleep.

The room is silent for five long beats.

Then Daud turns his cold eyes up to the Crow Queen, still staring at Hypatia’s unconscious body. “Well, that didn’t go as planned,” she says simply, turning her face to Daud. “But we’ve established that we can work together. Can we tolerate each other’s presence long enough to talk?”

Daud doesn’t say a word. He steps forward, blade still out but both his hands at his side. He looks her in the lens of her eyes.

Then he Blinks forward, grabs her by her stupid mask and sets his blade at her throat.

There’s a burning pain in his forearm, and he winces just long enough for the Crow Queen to disappear. He grasps at the bolt, pulling it out with a grunt and turning to stare down the crossbow hair of the Rat King.

“Wouldn’t it be easier just to hear us out?” The Crow Queen materializes again, holding her arms out to her side. “We can benefit from each other, we can-”

Daud is on her in a second. She Blinks, but so does he. The pounding in his ears have dulled, his mind clearer now. He can think straight. No distractions.

Just him and her blood.

Slow Time won’t help him. She’ll be immune to it and it would only serve to drain him. He doubts Pull will work on her-likely it’ll have the same effect as it had on Hypatia, disorienting but completely capable of breaking out of its grasp. And that’s fine.

Daud doesn’t _want_ to hold her still. He wants to feel her struggle for her life. He wants the resistance. He wants her to fight back.

He wants to make this hurt.

They dance together, blades clashing and voices grunting in effort. She blocks one of his attacks so abruptly and effectively that Daud is actually stunned back, shaking out his arm to rid the painful vibration in his bones. The Crow Queen jumps away, bringing her pistol up and cocking the chamber. Daud wonders briefly if they’re finally just going to kill him.

“No! Get off me!”

Daud whirls around with his heart in his throat. Lizzy is grasping at the Rat King’s arm, trying to wretch it away and clawing for her breath. Her legs kick into empty air. Caught in his chokehold, the Rat King is tall enough that Lizzy’s feet don’t even touch the ground.

“Put her down!” Daud raises his sword, though it’s for show. He’s too far away. And Lizzy is between them. “Don’t touch her!”

“Lower your weapons and we’ll do the same with her.”

The Crow Queen is a hot presence at his back, a malignant entity that permeates the room. She speaks lowly, methodically, as if drained of all emotion.

Daud can’t even consider disobeying. Lizzy’s voice is already going hoarse, muffled curses screamed into the Rat King’s sleeve. A gunshot won’t kill him, but he knows they’ll shoot Lizzy first. He can’t watch it. Not _again._

But as he begins to raise his arms in surrender, Lizzy manages to torc her head to the side. She pulls on the Rat King’s sleeve, exposing the tanned skin underneath. Just a bit. But enough.

Lizzy sinks her teeth into it.

The Rat King yells. He drops Lizzy, and she scrambles to collect her cleaver and Blink away.

Now Daud is bearing down on him, aiming to split that stupid mask clear in half. The Rat King Blinks forward, kicking out as he lands and sending Daud flying through the air. But he only needs to Blink again to right his boots back on the ground.

“Daud, we mean you no harm!” the Crow Queen cries as he rounds on her once again. “Neither of you! It’s imperative that we-”

Concentrating, Daud executes the same Blink-kick move he witnessed the Rat King perform, knocking the breath right out of the Queen. Then the King joins the fray once again, and Daud must parry.

It’s not a fair fight, two on one, even with Lizzy dancing around the outskirts and trying to get in jabs as she can. He hears her screaming as well, obscenities and other shit about revenge, but it fades under the downpour. She’s not their focus. Not his. Daud only knows to fight, and it’s all the King and Queen can do to hold even with him.

It wouldn’t be a fair fight, no, but Daud has rage to fuel him. His Empress’s fire alight in his veins, guiding his blade. He smells the smoke but it doesn’t slow him. He burns and he will spread her flames.

“He’s not listening to us!” the Crow Queen yells. The Rat King grunts as he weathers a particularly hard blow on the plates of his shoulders, dodging the next aimed at his neck.

“I _see_ that.”

The Rat King’s voice is deep, gruff and even. As if he’s annoyed.

The Crow Queen waves her free hand, trying to motion something to her partner while blocking Daud’s attacks with her sword. “Enough! We did not come here to murder you, and-”

Daud moves in and back-hands her across the face. Brings his sword down on her armored sleeve.

Her sword falls from her hand. And Daud plants his boot right in the middle of her stomach, sending her to the stone.

She props herself up on her elbows, and the blank lenses of her mask peer up at him. Innocently. She doesn’t try to move, to escape. Her blade is feet away. She knows what’s coming. She knows Daud deserves this.

He clutches his blade and-

And then there’s the fingers, slid up into his skull and clutching his brain in its fist. Strings on his wrists, coaxing him to drop his blade, but Daud is stronger now. He pulls. The strings snap. He fights back.

They meet and Daud feels pressure, sees nothing but blue, and then there’s the worst swirl of emotions and thoughts pressing on him, choking him out. He feels the Rat King, not just under his skin but _feels_ him, his love for the Crow Queen and his care for their coven, he sees Daud and he thinks of how he reached for her like grasping for his lifeline and he sees his dead-eyed stare as they dragged him away to Coldridge and the way he stared at the blood of his Empress covering his hands, he sees Daud and he thinks of Billie and he sees her as she bleeds to death on the roof of the water lock while the Queen directs the Cardinals still present and Billie grasps at his collar and stains it with her blood and demands they look her in the eye when they kill her, he looks at Daud and he thinks of Billie and he feels shame and guilt and he sees a little girl with a bow in her dark hair and how can he tell her and she’s holding a wooden sword with purple polish on her nails and Billie’s blood is under his and she covers one eye with her hand and she’s beaming at him and what if someone did that to Emily _Emily_ ** _EmilyEMILY-_ **

Daud shudders as he breathes, contracting his muscles as if forcing a wound to bleed. The Rat King appears in a flash of blue. Stumbles.

“My head,” Daud heaves, turning to face him. “Is the _last_ place you want to be.”

The Rat King doesn’t respond. He falls to his knees, hands to the ground. Then he pulls up his mask and vomits.

Daud adjusts his grip, stepping towards the Rat King with his blade out. His hood has been pushed back, revealing long brown hair and a glimpse of the back of his neck. Perfectly in position. Daud inhales and raises his sword above his head.

_“No!”_

Daud sees only the faintest glimpse of the Crow Queen holding out her palm, the glow of the Mark reflecting off her mask.

Then his gaze shifts over to Lizzy, who has dropped her cleaver. Literally dropped it. It clatters on the tiles, and she nearly trips over it as she moves, her eyes glazed and wide. It’s automatic, to turn and see what she’s looking at, and-

And there’s nothing. A warm glow fills him, and Daud feels his muscles relax. Endless brown, peels of laughter at his ears and a pleasant numbing feeling in his limbs. He’s sleepy, but not tired.

What is he fighting again? Why is he bothering? It’s so nice here. Was this always waiting right here, open for him? It’s been here all along. They’ve never left him.

And Daud never wants to leave. The burden of his thoughts are suspended and he’s wrapped in a bath of warm water, drifting free from worry. He feels peace. This is what he’s been wanting. Peace. Something about peace. Wanted it, grasped it in his hands. Give it to...her.

The thought grounds him. Makes him feel the ache in his fingers and tingling feeling arcing up his arm. He dips his toes back into reality and he falls through. It isn’t real. It never was.

Daud blinks. In front of him is some kind of blight on reality, all black and twisting in on itself. Beautiful and horrible, but he doesn’t allow his gaze to linger on it any longer. It’s nothing. It’s all it ever was.

Lizzy and Vasco stand near him, still trapped in the imaginary world it provided them. Hypatia lies still on the floor, her chest rising and falling with reliable timing. The greenhouse is otherwise empty.

No.

Daud scoops up his sword as he runs for the door. Lizzy and Vasco are still hypnotized, Hypatia is unrestrained and any of the guards can come up and see it all at any moment. Daud doesn’t care.

All he cares about is that the people who murdered his Billie are getting away, and he can _not_ let them get away.

He feels their movement on the wind, some primal part of him guiding his path. Daud runs for the edge of the roof and leaps off the railing, trusting his Blink to carry him to safety on the other side of the street. He’s never Blinked this far and his leg hurts when he lands, but he pays it no mind. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

He sees them limping across the rooftops, the Rat King with one arm around his Queen, and her holding him up. They don’t hear him dash across the shingles, leaping over the gaps between buildings, until he’s nearly on top of them.

Daud flicks his wrist, sending a bolt into the leg of the Rat King. He goes down, as expected, and the Crow Queen wraps both her arms around his waist in an attempt to keep him upright. She turns her head back and catches glimpse of him, just in time for Daud to raise his Marked hand and Pull.

It only tugs on her for a moment, but it’s enough to separate the two. She’s pulled away and her arms reach out to take hold of him, and by the time she regains her footing the King has slipped out of her reach.

The Rat King falls, and he slides down the shingles. The Crow Queen raises her hands as his legs slip off the edge.

“Corvo!”

Daud stops short. Corvo. Corvo. _Corvo._

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

But the Rat King finds a handhold, and his descent halts. He doesn’t pull himself up immediately, maybe he can’t, but he’s safe. For now.

Daud grits his teeth. He can’t afford any more distractions. He needs to end this. End both their miserable lives and figure the rest out later.

He turns and-the Crow Queen is on him, fighting back with a fury he hadn’t felt from her before this. Her blade catches on his side and he feels the bite, even through the layers of padding and armor, and he relishes it. The pain centers him and the blood fuels his blaze. Every cut, every blow she lands just makes him stronger.

Daud rushes forward with a speed she wasn’t expecting. He grabs her shoulder, pulls her in. And aims his blade straight for her heart.

And for the moment, he feels powerful. Triumphant. The Crow Queen stares at him in horror as he brings the blade in and he drinks in her fear. And just before his blade pierces her heart, he looks over her shoulder to see the Rat King staggering to his feet, his hands entwined in the long fingers of his Queen.

His blade meets her chest. And she pops like an overfilled balloon, erupts in a flash of sparkles and screams.

Daud coughs. Squeezes his eyes shut, hunched over, trying desperately not to lose his footing. Dark spots linger on his retinas when he opens his eyes, and the world seems to spin.

He looks around. Staggers. Blinks his eyes and waits for the dizziness to pass, then looks again.

Nothing but the rooftops, and the Wrenhaven beyond them.

“No…”

Daud moves. Blinks to another roof. Blinks higher, whipping his head around. Nothing. They’re gone.

“No!”

They can’t. They _can’t_ be gone. Daud has to kill them. He can’t live knowing they’re out there, knowing they could hurt Thomas, knowing she still wields the same knife that ended Billie’s life. He can’t. He just _can’t._

But the rooftops are empty. He couldn’t stop them.

Again.

Daud throws back his head and screams. It’s a deep, guttural thing that slaps his vocal chords together and creates a burning sensation deep in his throat. It echoes off the crumbling, dying buildings and disappears into the expanse of the sky. Swallowed up by the heavens.

Daud screams until there’s no air left in his lungs and his scream is cut off, and he collapses to his knees.

 

* * *

 

He searches some more, though he knows he won’t find them now. He knows, in the pit of his stomach, that they’re gone. And he has no idea when and where he’ll meet them next. Who they might threaten this time.

The sky turns grey and Daud has to admit defeat. He turns back. Trudges towards Sokolov’s safehouse.

He keeps above the streets, though he sees no patrols. Good. Daud will kill anything he comes into contact with right now. He wants the fight, wants to feel their blood cool against his skin. He wants the kill. But nobody seems to have heard the fight, or his scream. Or if they did, they don’t care enough to investigate.

Billie thrums in his hand as he sets his sights back on the safehouse, gentle and powerful. He holds her up to the moonlight and squeezes.

 _‘Why have they presented themselves now?’_ She asks him, innocent and almost child-like. _‘Am I meant to forgive them for what they did?’_

“No.” Daud’s voice breaks as he says it. “No, you don’t have to do anything.”

He strokes the surface of the Talisman, feeling her energy breathe, pulse, melancholy and pensive. That’s fine. That’s all fine.

He doesn’t want her to forgive them, but he also doesn’t want her to be angry. Daud will take that for her. He’ll feel all her anger and pain, take it so she doesn’t have to.

The sleep-darted guard is still snoozing away, though that’ll wear off soon. The roof is deserted, so at least their fight didn’t attract any attention from downstairs.

Lizzy and Vasco are sitting cross-legged on the floor when he returns, passing a bottle back and forth. Lizzy looks up at him with hopeful and strangely pitiful eyes.

Daud closes the door and looks to the ground. “They were too quick.”

“Oh.”

He leans against the door, his legs feeling too heavy to move on. His muscles are made of lead and his bones from solid iron. Lizzy wanders over and slaps a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll get them, Daud. Don’t worry.”

He knows that. Eventually, they’ll fall to his blade. But there will be no peace until then.

Enough. They have a mission to do. Or-finish, actually. Daud pushes away from the door.

“We need to get moving,” he says, glancing at Vasco down on the floor and Hypatia in a heap beside him. “How long will that tranquilizer last?”

“Oh.” Vasco’s eyes go wide. “Um, about eighteen hours. Roughly. So we have until about, um, noon? Tomorrow?”

“We need to GTFO like, now, though.” Lizzy stares down at him with her hands on her hips. “Someone’s going to try checking on you fucks here soon and I want to be as far away as possible when that alarm goes up.”

“Right, right.” Vasco gets to his feet. “Um...so did you want me to pretend I was sleeping, or…”

Lizzy stares at him. “Uh, no, you’re coming with us.”

“Oh, thank the Void.” Vasco lets out a sigh of relief. “Kaldwin is _crazy._ She’d probably kill me even if I really was asleep during Hypatia’s kidnapping.”

“That, and you’ve seen our faces. So you gotta come too, kid.” Lizzy shrugs and looks around. “I dunno, do you need to like...grab a bag?”

Vasco excuses himself to gather the most vital of his and Hypatia’s notes and possessions. Daud gives him fifteen minutes. They won’t leave without him, of course, but Daud will definitely throw him over his shoulder and carry him to the skiff if he needs to.

Lizzy busies herself with applying starch-white paint to her fingers and writing the fearsome words on the wall. There’s no bodies to serve as an example, but there’s enough blood splattered around the room that it should still make for an effective reminder. And a lack of bodies, two in particular, should be menacing in their own right.

Daud paces behind her. The test subject is still unconscious-will hopefully stay that way, until she expires-and the rats that the King had summoned are stiff and cold. Daud nudges one with his foot. It falls over with a clack. He finds the Crow Queen’s throwing knife, lodged in the side of a worktable. He pulls it free and slides it into his pocket.

The emotions swell and dive with every step, and he finds himself nearly stomping. Lizzy turns when he stops and gives one of the tables a half-hearted punch.

“What did the table do to you?”

“I just…” Daud shuts his eyes, shaking his head. “Just want to break something.”

“Then break something.”

Daud opens his eyes. “What?”

Lizzy shrugs, paint still clinging to her gloves. “Break some shit. If it makes you feel better, then do it.”

He nods. Slowly. Then he grabs the table and upturns it, sends all its equipment to the floor.

Daud punches the glass cases, overturns shelves filled with beakers and tubes and other shit he doesn’t know the purpose of. He just knows it’s glass and it shatters upon contact with the floor. He just knows that it breaks.

He destroys Hypatia’s audiograph machine. Knocks over furniture, dumps her planter boxes on the floor. Lizzy drags Hypatia onto a countertop, away from the destruction, and watches him lazily.

Vasco’s eyes widen when he re-enters the room.

“I had to break something,” Daud says evenly.

Vasco nods. “Um, okay. Better than someone’s neck, I guess.”

Daud carries Hypatia over his shoulder as they Blink down to the water, Vasco clinging to Lizzy and Lizzy whispering that she’ll knock him out too if his ‘girly squeals’ give them away. She starts up the boat while Daud and Vasco get Hypatia situated in the skiff.

“By the way, Vas-man.” Lizzy lights a cigarette, taking in a lungful before continuing. “Uh, yeah, this is _the_ Daud. The Royal Protector one, you know, that everyone’s talking about.”

“I kind of gathered that.” Vasco smiles with his lips pressed together.

And he didn’t go running for the hills, so either he’s got balls or Delilah scares him so much that Daud is rather non-threatening in comparison.

“So, actual introductions.” Lizzy starts up the boat. “Lizzy Stride, a drunken dyke hailing from some fuck-ass town in Morley you’ve never heard of. Daud, an asshole who likes to pretend he’s everyone’s dad and averages about two facial expressions a week.”

“That is not true.”

“It so is.” She turns back to Vasco. “Ever see someone laugh with a completely straight face? It’s unnerving. Watch him. When he _does_ smile, it’s that creepy serial killer grin without any teeth.”

“I meant that the former isn’t true, but if you continue to prattle on about it, I’d like to remind you that I know how to pilot your boat and out here, no one will ever find your body.”

“Oh, boo.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Anyway. We may be jerks, but you’re safe with us, kid.”

“I know. Thank you.” Vasco sits with Hypatia’s head in his lap. “You two are clearly very good at what you do.”

“We are _very_ good. But don’t mistake us for the real assassins. Daud didn’t kill the Empress.”

“I deduced that as well. Considering how he was screaming at those two.”

“Delilah hired them,” Daud whispers. His fingers dig into his pant leg.

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“But we’ll get ‘em in the end. Them and Delilah both.” Lizzy blows out her smoke, the amber glow of the end casting shadows across her face. “They’ll all get what’s coming to them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corvo: "Is this really a good idea? He did watch us murder one of his kids and kidnap the other." Jess: "I'm sure it's fine. He's been killing slightly less people now. He'll be open to partnering up with us after we kill a woman in front of him." Corvo: "K, but just in case I'm gonna knock out this other loser he adopted and hold her hostage while you chat." CorvoJess: "This is a good plan."
> 
> But seriously, they have their reasons. 
> 
> Not pictured: Vasco watching Daud fight CorvoJess, sitting and petting Hypatia's hair like you pet your friend's dog when you're at their house and their parents are yelling at them.
> 
> I see a lot of hate for Sokolov, and while there's plenty of valid reasons to dislike him, I feel like straight-up demonizing him for using human test subjects is harsh. We know, from The Corroded Man, (the only novel I'm considering canon) that if Piero and Sokolov didn't unite to find a cure when they did, the Rat Plague would have eventually spread to the rest of Gristol and the other Isles. It would have literally been an apocalyptic event. Obviously experimenting on people is wrong, but it's also real easy for us to preach that while we're sitting on our high horses. A third of Dunwall's population had dropped dead at this point. People were still dying left and right. They needed to find a cure and find it fast because every day meant another pile of corpses. Sokolov didn't do it because he was a mustache-twirling villain who liked seeing people suffer. He did it because taking the moral high ground would cause exponentially more death. And anyway, we all blame people like Sokolov and Daud for everything that was wrong in the game, but let's not forget that it was all fucking Burrows's fault in the first place.
> 
> Idk where the Imperial Crypt actually is. We only know that it exists. So it's underneath Dunwall Tower because why not? People are buried in the Tower of London.
> 
> So maybe an orca isn't the most regal thing to put on a crest, but I thought it was perfect for the Lurks. (lions were also a strong contender, but I thought that might be interpreted as mildly racist?) Except that whales are A Big Deal in the DH universe. But DH whales, the only species they have apparently, are modeled after an extinct species of sperm whale, and indeed, sperm whales are hunted for their oil in real life. Orcas aren't even in the same family as them-they're actually closer to dolphins. So since they're Technically Dolphins, we'll just drop the term killer whale. Also fun fact: an orca is my Patronus. That totally didn't factor into my decision.
> 
> Oh, and Deirdre! And she's alive and shit. Her role is actually kind of reversed with Billie's in canon, so now she's the angry, murdery one. But still gay. Explaining her joke: 'A Game of Flats' is a really old term for lesbian sex. She's calling herself a dyke. I thought it was funny.
> 
> So I really love Hypatia and the whole Crown Killer plot, but that mission infuriates me to no end. That is exactly how DID does not work. I realize this is a game where you literally get supernatural powers from a child whale god, but that shit falls under reasonable suspension of belief. You try to bring psychology into this? And get it wrong? So my explanation is that Grim Alex is partially fueled by magic. I mean, her eyes do change colors and glow. And Hypatia is actually immune to death blows-you can slit her throat and she will still morph. She's the only character in the entire franchise that this is true for. I also dislike how the whole thing is basically waved away with one injection-so we get to keep Hypatia like this for a bit. And actually deal with it in a meaningful way.
> 
> This is the chapter where I feel like I veer off Daud's character a lot. He's really not the 'scream to the heavens in anger' type, (I do not consider The Return of Daud canon, that piece of trash) but, you know, he's been through a lot. He's allowed a breakdown or ten. Also he canonically tells his Whalers not to bother knocking people out to spare lives, but then, Canon Daud is primarily motivated by money, while he's motivated by emotional bullshit here. That's how I'm justifying it, anyway.
> 
> I know the comment count is sitting at 69 right now, and as much as I appreciate it, sacrifices must always be made. So don't let the urge to keep it at 69 hold you back. I'm hungry for your thoughts.


	16. Sweet Innocent Hypatia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grim Alex is creepy. Daud is overdramatic, and a supreme dad. We finally get a name for the Dressmaker so I can stop calling him that.

“How many people can you fit on this thing, anyway?”

Vasco peers nervously over the edge, as if hagfish were gathered below the hull and licking their lips in anticipation.

Lizzy sets down her third cigarette of the evening. “I dunno, ten? If you don’t care about it still floating, that is.” She turns to veer the skiff towards the canal entrance. “It’s meant for two, but I’ve fit four in before. And one of them was Edgar, so that’s like an extra half a person right there.”

“But coupled with you, Stride, probably evened it out at two people.” Daud turns his body to blow his smoke out onto the water.

She laughs. “Yeah, true. I guess I’ve always had to balance out his extra rice portions.”

Lizzy still manages to eat almost as much as Edgar, despite being about a third of his body mass. Was like that before getting the Bond, too. It goes to her wiry muscles or it just goes through her. Daud can’t imagine how her mother kept her fed growing up.

It makes him a little jealous too. Daud’s never eaten much, but he gets pudgy right quick if he doesn’t adhere to his workout routine. He lost weight in prison, but then, he had nearly been starved to death.

He nudges Vasco with his knee. “The boat will be fine. And we’re almost there, anyway.”

“I know.” Vasco nods, peeking over his shoulder once again. “I just can’t swim very well.”

“Don’t worry, kid, I can swim fine while carting around Daud’s dead weight. So even if we go down, I gotchu.”

It doesn’t seem to placate Vasco much, but he shuts up about the topic.

“So when we get back to base,” Daud leads in, flicking his cigarette butt into the water. “You’re going to have to explain what happened. But the things you saw us do there…”

“The magic?” Vasco raises his eyebrows. “You have the Mark of the Outsider, don’t you?”

Daud grits his front teeth before answering. “Yes.”

Vasco’s eyes flicker between him and Lizzy. “Both of you? Because I’ve seen some of Kaldwin’s agents do that sort of thing, and they don’t have the Mark…”

“Daud’s the Marked fuck.” Lizzy doesn’t turn her head back. “He can give me, like, some of his powers. I dunno how it works. He did it for two of our other friends.”

“But they’re the only ones who know about it.” Daud leans in, practically bumping his knees against Vasco’s. “Nobody else knows I’m Marked. I don’t  _ want  _ anyone else to know.”

Vasco nods quickly. “Sure, sure, I can keep quiet about it. I’ll leave out some details.”

“I mean it.”

_ ‘He is loyal only to his own heart. But...it is a good heart. One that sees the good in yours.’ _

What good? Daud’s heart is a blackened husk.

“I mean it too.” Vasco glances down at Hypatia’s sleeping form, her head tipped against his calves. “You didn’t have to save her. And you didn’t have to get me out of there. So I owe you.”

Daud leans back in his seat. “Well, keep it a secret and we’ll consider ourselves even.”

It’s a secret he’s willing to kill to keep. But there’s no point in scaring the kid now. Billie tells him, in her own weird way, that Vasco is trustworthy. And he believes her over everything.

“So who all are your allies?” Vasco asks as they duck under the gate that leads into the canal. “You mentioned Emperor Thomas being there? So he is alive, after all?”

Daud’s heart does a little skip in excitement as he hears Thomas’s new title being used, but he maintains his straight face. “Yeah, we rescued him a few weeks ago. Didn’t you know Delilah was holding him?”

“I mean, I figured that much, but she never told us.” Vasco shakes his head. “But, yeah, about a month ago she started ramping up the search. Even Hypatia couldn’t find him, and she can smell out anything when she’s, you know. Like  _ that.”  _ He toes her unconscious form. “The best I could figure was that whoever she had entrusted to hold him had accidentally killed him and was trying to cover it up, to be frank.”

Wouldn’t  _ that  _ be a shitstorm.

“Nah, we murdered old Timsh is his house,” Lizzy snorts. “He was just your regular brand of incompetence though , not _ that _ stupid.”

“Thalia, the Timsh heiress, is part of this,” Daud tells him. “And Lady Boyle.”

“Which one?”

“Lydia.”

Vasco makes a face. “I thought she ran away with some seamstress? That’s the gossip I overheard, at least.”

Lizzy bursts out laughing. “Well, I’m sure she’d love to, but no. She’s teaching kids and generally being weird as fuck. She’s the only noblewoman to date I like.” She pumps a lever. “Besides the Empress. Didn’t meet her, but from everything I’ve heard, she was a cool motherfucker.”

“Don’t think you’d know any other names,” Daud derails. “Besides her uncle, that is.”

“Yeah, she’s mentioned her uncle. But she said her entire family died of the plague?”

He supposes Hypatia has reason to believe that. It’s all true apart from her uncle, and the Dressmaker had virtually dropped off the face of the planet after moving in here. Delilah could have very well lied to her as well.

He almost doesn’t recognize the dock right away, considering this is the first time they’ve returned from a mission during the night. Well, he supposes it was dark by the time they got back from Slaughterhouse Row. But Daud was actively dying at that time.

Now he bends and scoops up their current unconscious occupant and ignores how his back muscles protest at it. The pain has been easy enough to ignore thus far. Adrenaline and physical work, it’s kept his mind off it. His back is healing, at least. But this has been the most physically taxing night he’s had since the explosion. He has a feeling he’s either going to need to get off his feet or start in with another round of painkillers very soon. 

No one’s waiting for them outside the mill, which is good. Though the night just got a lot safer, he thinks, with the Butcher in his arms.

“Glad we turned the water back on,” Lizzy says as she moors the boat. “Would have been nice when I had to park it and hike half a mile upriver with your ass slung over my shoulder.”

“Why would you have to do that?” Vasco blinks at them innocently. “Could he not walk?”

“He got hurt on our last mission, kid. Real bad. Burns up the ass and his back is completely fucked up. Thought he was gonna leave us for a spell there.”

“I almost did,” Daud mumbles under his breath.

“Oh! Well, I know I’m not a real doctor yet, but maybe I could be of some help? You don’t want to put back injuries on the back burner.”

Daud didn’t understand that phrase for an embarrassingly long time. It wasn’t until he moved to Dunwall Tower and saw their fancy, state-of-the-art cooking stoves that he realized that stoves did indeed have more than one burner. Most he used didn’t even have a cooking range.

“That’s real sweet of you, kid, but we already had…” Lizzy snaps her fingers. “Yeah, no, actually. You’re probably way smarter than Trimble.”

“Trimble?” Vasco’s voice goes up. “You mean William Trimble?”

“How the hell do you know him?” Daud asks, curling his lip. He’s not sure when Trimble left the Academy, but it’s probably been a few years. Vasco’s only eighteen-he can’t have been a student for very long.

But Vasco shakes his head. “Well, I don’t  _ know  _ him, just of him. His duel with Piero is legendary.”

“Trimble got himself involved in a duel?” Lizzy makes no effort to hide her laughter. “Holy fuck, you have  _ got _ to tell me this story sometime.”

“It’s more ridiculous than anything else.”

“Which is why I need to know! Anyway, Daud, you should take your shirt off for him sometime.”

“Lizzy…” he groans.

He lets Lizzy press the intercom and give the password, shifting Hypatia in his arms. She hasn’t so much as stirred since the...since  _ he  _ knocked her out. Daud considered tying her up, but she’s completely limp, the only movement coming from the rise and fall of her chest. She’s fully out. Will be until tomorrow.

Jerome opens the door, eyes sweeping over the group and colored in confusion as they settle on Vasco.

“We had to bring him along,” Daud says, as Jerome steps to the side and allows them entry. “Delilah would have killed him.”

“I can help out wherever you need me.” Vasco looks at the ground as he passes the threshold. “And I don’t eat much.”

Footsteps echo across the plaza as Jerome locks up behind them. Daud turns to see the Dressmaker barreling towards them, Paul following close behind.

“Alex?! Alex, are you…” He blinks as he looks around, and Daud sees the moment he realizes who the lump in his arms is. His eyes widen, and his feet still. Mouth open with unsaid questions.

“She’s alive.” No change. “We just had to knock her out.”

“But she’s alright?” The Dressmaker opens his arms to accept her, and it’s then that his expression breaks. “Oh, Alex, thank the Void.”

Daud has to help him sit as he refuses to put Hypatia down, and though the Dressmaker is relatively strong for a man of his age, Hypatia nearly mirrors him in height and undoubtedly has at least fifty pounds in pure muscle mass on him.

“What the hell happened?” Galia comes up on them, hands on her hips. Edgar, he sees, is snoring away in the corner, and Reed is trying to shake awake both Thomas and Rose, fallen asleep on a bench with their backs up against each other. “You took forever. And you guys look like shit.”

“Thanks, Gails. I always feel appreciated when you’re around.”

“Hey, you’re back.” Thomas stretches out with a yawn. Rose narrowly avoids getting an elbow to the face and looks extraordinary pissed off about it.

Paul is still standing in the middle of the plaza, looking rather confused. “So...I take it this is Vasco?”

“Indeed!” Vasco brightens up.

“What the fuck?” Rose has apparently fully woken up now, and is staring at Vasco with repugnance. “Is your face okay?”

His face looked bad enough in the dying evening light and the dim oil lamps at Sokolov’s old safehouse, but the mall is lit by bright floodlights that put Vasco’s bruising in high definition. There’s little swelling in his eye, but the bruise covers roughly a third of his face. Mottled purple and black, faded to green in some areas. Too large to be from a single strike.  

Thomas is the one who sweeps over, hand hovering at the side of Vasco’s cheekbone. “Did  _ Delilah  _ do this to you?”

And Daud has to make a fist and physically hold himself back from wondering why Thomas jumped immediately to that conclusion.

“Um. No.” Vasco looks sheepishly in Hypatia’s direction. “She did.”

A scandalized noise emits deep from the Dressmaker’s throat.

“How dare you!” The Dressmaker pulls Hypatia in, glaring at Vasco with venom. “You’re a lying little wretch is what you are! Alex wouldn’t harm a bloodfly!”

“I mean, you’re correct, sir, but-”

“There’s more to it than that.” Daud puts his hand up to quiet Vasco before he does more damage. “We have some things to tell you. And you’re not going to like any of it.”

The Dressmaker looks up at him, fearful, blinking his eyes rapidly while holding Hypatia all the tighter.

Then Reed’s dumb tophat bounces around in his periphery, and Daud turns to see the kid looking at Hypatia with a tilt in his head.

“She smells like dead people.”

“She was working on…” The Dressmaker’s lips form words, but nothing comes out, and he just shakes his head and looks back to his niece.

Thomas steps up behind Reed and gently pulls him back. “So what happened with her?” he asks, turning to Daud. “What happened to  _ you? _ You look-”

“I’m fine.” Daud waves him away.

“He probably killed a bunch of people,” Reed remarks boredly. 

Lizzy steps away from Jerome long enough to yell over to them. “Hey, we didn’t kill anyone tonight! Give us some credit!”

Yeah. No one died. Not even the people who deserved to.

“No one?” Thomas raises an eyebrow at him, then pokes him in the side. “So this is what, decorative blood?”

Daud hides the wince that comes with Thomas aggravating the knife wound the Crow Queen opened on his side. “That’s my blood,” he grits.

“It’s  _ your-” _

“Thomas, shouldn’t you be in bed or something?”

Thomas looks to the floor, then turns his head when he realizes Rose isn’t next to him. Indeed, she’s still hovering near the bench she’d been sleeping on. Stiff and staring at Hypatia with apprehension.

“I had a dream last night,” Reed continues, his face a strange mixture of animation and complete detachment. “We were all trying to paddle Lizzy’s boat down the Wrenhaven but the river was filled with blood. Every time we tried to dock the shore would turn into rats. You were there-” He points to Galia, who just stares at him with a perturbed expression. “But we had to throw you overboard so we didn’t sink. And then Paul turned into a flying gecko and flew away with Daud.”

“There are geckos that can fly?” Paul snaps his fingers. “That’s awesome.”

Galia smacks him over the head. “Don’t encourage him!”

“Reed, maybe you should start drinking the tea I showed you how to make before you go to sleep,” the Dressmaker says tiredly. “It’ll help with the nightmares.”

Reed just shrugs.

“So what  _ did _ happen here?” Galia points to the patch of slightly darker red on his coat.

Thomas crosses his arms. “You should go wake Trimble.”

He should. It probably needs stitches. “I’ll be fine until morning.”

That wasn’t a lie, technically. He would be fine. And by morning, he’ll have healed enough that there would be no point in visiting Trimble.

“Did you run into much trouble with Delilah’s forces?” Galia wraps her arms around her midsection, dwarfed in her large coat.

“A…” He considers. “Bit. Getting Alexandria to...come along, that was the hard part.”

“Did  _ she  _ kill someone?” Reed asks bluntly. “There’s blood on her fingers.”

The Dressmaker gasps and picks up on of Hypatia’s limp hands, and Daud seizes Reed by the shoulder and turns him away with a little more force than necessary. “Okay. It’s time for bed for you.”

Reed twists out of his grip. “My sister said I could stay up!”

“Listen to Daud, Reed.” Rose just looks blank. Daud’s eyes swing to Thomas, standing next to her.

“It’s the middle of the night, why is he still awake?” He waves them off. “All three of you. Bed.  _ Now.” _

Reed turns his chin up and scrunches his nose. “I want to listen to your story!”

“And I’m saying no.”

“But I don’t want-”

“Well that’s too bad, because you’re the child and I’m the adult, so sometimes I have to choose for you!”

“Ooh.” Thomas grimaces. “The ‘I have to pick for the both of us’ line. Been a while since I heard that one.” He holds out his hand, waggling his fingers in Reed’s direction. “Come on, Reed, let’s take you back to the mill.”

Reed stomps his foot. “You’re not my brother!” He whirls on Daud, pointing an accusatory finger at his chest. “You are not the boss of me!”

“No, I am.” Rose seizes his arm and pulls, hard. “And  _ I  _ told you to go to bed,” she says through gritted teeth. “So you’re going to get your ass up there without any more whining and go the fuck to sleep, because you’re going to be apologizing to a lot of people tomorrow.”

Reed pulls his arm away and shoots his sister a venomous glare. “Mother wouldn’t make me!”

“Mother never made you do anything because she didn’t care about you! She probably doesn’t remember you exist!”

“I hate you!” Reed pushes her, hard. “I wish Heather had caught you instead of Joshua!”

He runs off as Thomas kneels to help Rose back up.

“Um…” Lizzy leans forward to glance down the hall. “Can we get him, like, a chill pill? Or maybe a therapist?”

“He’s just being a kid. He’ll get over it.” Daud presses his lips together as he watches the door slam. Reed’s eleven. All eleven-year-olds are little bitches. Even Thomas had been considerably difficult during those years, and while he didn’t technically meet Billie until she was twelve, she was a little shit then and he can only imagine she had been every bit the brat she was a few months prior. 

Still. This aggression is uncharacteristic of Reed. And Daud feels responsible for setting that example.

“I’m so sorry.” Rose says it to both him and the Dressmaker, but she keeps her eyes from wandering near Hypatia’s form. “I don’t know what his deal is lately.”

“It’s alright. He’s probably just tired.” Daud motions her away. “Go get some rest. You can stay in the attic if you want. I’m probably not going to get to bed before dawn.” He catches her look of confusion and clears his throat. “The door locks.”

It elicits a smile: a small one, but genuine. “Thanks, Daud.”

“We’ll talk more when you get up.” Thomas pins him to the floor with his look. It’s not a question. Daud rolls his eyes and ruffles Thomas’s hair.

“Yeah. I’ll give you all the details.” And he almost wants to lean in and hug Thomas good night, but there’s too many people around. Too many eyes. “Now go the fuck to bed.”

Thomas nods, then he turns and takes Rose by the hand. “Come on, let’s go have a slumber party.”

They watch the two leave, and are quiet until the door swings shut behind them.

“Did…” Galia turns her head. “Did Edgar really sleep through all that?”

Lizzy frowns and, without hesitation, marches over and stares down at Edgar’s snoozing form, slouched in his seat and his neck bent backwards to rest against the wall. Then she pinches his nose shut with one and and uses the other to cover his mouth.

As expected, Edgar wakes quickly, waving his arms and nearly falling out of his seat. “What the fuck? Stride!”

“We’re back, loser. And you missed Daud’s ‘Ultra-Parenting Mode’ activate.”

“You’re just gonna let them sleep together, Daud?” Jerome motions, raising an eyebrow. “Aren’t you worried?”

“They’re both gay and Rose is already pregnant, what the fuck would I be worried for?”

“Anyway.” Lizzy turns and walks back towards the group. “We really should get started, uh...we need to restrain her.” She motions towards Hypatia. “Preferably soon.”

Vasco quickly checks his watch. “Well, we have roughly about fourteen hours before the tranquilizer wears off, but we do need to figure it out because she is quite hard to contain.”

“How?!” The Dressmaker leans away from her. “What the hell did you  _ give  _ her?! Why does my niece need  _ restraining?!” _

“We told you,” Daud tells him, shoulders square and hands in his pocket. “You’re not going to like this.”

 

* * *

 

When he’s finished, everyone is silent for several long beats. Galia and Paul exchange strange glances with each other. Edger looks beyond confused.

The Dressmaker just sits there, Hypatia’s head in his lap and softly running his fingers through her hair.

Vasco shifts awkwardly as he sits back down. “I’m really sorry you had to find out this way-actually, I’m sorry there’s a reason to tell you at all-”

“Please don’t talk,” the Dressmaker says softly. “I believe you and I’m not angry. I just...need a moment to absorb this.”

“What in the world was in this original serum?” Galia asks with her mouth still gaping open. To her side, Edgar raises his hand.

“Or, maybe she’s a werewolf!” he says excitedly. “Maybe the medicine thing is just a coincidence!”

Lizzy smacks the back of his head so hard his hat tumbles into his lap. “Fuck off, Edgar, this is serious.”

“You know, I actually have considered lycanthropy.” Vasco taps a finger at his lip. “I know relatively little about it-werecats are more talked about in Serkonos, where I’m from, and I never believed in any of it before. Until I saw all this. But it wasn’t like I had much literature on the subject available to me, so I wasn’t able to research the condition in an academic setting.”

The phrase ‘research lycanthropy in an academic setting’ would normally be humorous to him, but Daud finds himself agreeing. He never thought true witches existed-his mother had been one, technically, but she dealt in bonecharms and poisons. If she utilized any real magic, he never saw it. But Delilah and her coven are classic witches, something straight out of a children’s story. He practices magic, and Billie is a goddamn ghost. Who is he to say that werewolves can’t exist?

...Werewolves have always terrified him. He used to have nightmares about turning into one. If he finds out now that they’re real, he will never sleep again.

“Well, we can worry about the technical terms later. You know, when we’re not in danger of her ripping our faces off.” Galia rubs her temples.

“As much as I hate to say it, Gails is right.” Galia gives Lizzy a dirty look, who continues talking as if nothing’s amiss. “Vasco’s little neutralizer will wear off around noon, and I say this as someone who’s been on the end of her claws. You do not want to be on her bad side when she’s like that.”

“Well, she might not be ‘Grim Alex’ when she awakens,” Vasco says, still stroking his hairless chin. “Of course, she might be too. She’s awakened both ways.”

Jerome sighs and gets to his feet. “So we’ll need to secure her somewhere, then. Buddy, I know you had your heart set on her staying with you…”

“It’s fine,” the Dressmaker says quietly, never tearing his eyes from Hypatia’s slumbering face. “Vasco can have the bed I made up for her.”

“So where’s the best place to park her, then?” Jerome’s eyes scan over the crowd. “We got a few options.”

Lizzy juts her hand into the air. “I nominate Trimble’s place! Plenty of rooms he’s not using, and if she escapes she’ll eat him first. No loss there.”

“Take this seriously, Lizzy,” Daud chides, then turns back to the group. “Not in the mill itself. She’s a risk and the Emperor must be protected. Not to mention the rest of the kids who sleep there.”

“That’s fine, because I was going to suggest the mall anyway.” Jerome shrugs. “We’re only using three of these shops and they all have the big metal storm doors.”

Vasco raises his hand. “What are the walls made of?”

Jerome blinks. “The...walls.”

“Yes. You see, there’s a reason Sokolov’s safehouse was selected as our prison. Hypatia is extraordinary hard to contain. Given time, she can claw through plaster. But the metal exterior of the safehouse proved impenetrable.”

It clearly wasn’t to anyone with half a brain, Daud thinks.

“So you’re saying…” Jerome holds up his hands, blinking and staring at Vasco with a very tired sort of incredulity. “...that  _ walls  _ won’t stops her.  _ Walls.  _ She’ll just break through them.”

“Well…yes.”

“We could just keep her tied up,” Galia remarks, looking over to Hypatia’s unconscious form.

“She’s stronger than ropes.”

“Chains, then.”

“To what? She can tear anchoring hooks out of the wall.”

“Where the fuck are we gonna find shackles for that anyway?” Lizzy raises an eyebrow. “Unless someone here is into the really freaky shit.”

Galia throws her hands into the air. “I’m just trying to help!”

“We’re going to need to keep her secure for several months. We’re not going to leave her tied up for that long,” Daud says tiredly. He was kept chained up in Coldridge, and if he thinks on it too long he can still feel the weight of the shackles on his wrists and ankles, cold and dirty and always just loose enough that wiggling out of them seemed possible but he never could. He usually wasn’t restrained tightly enough to restrict his movement, at least. That was a torture in and of itself. Not that Daud really had to energy to scratch and move and push his hair back from his face, but nothing physically impeded it.

Then he looks around, scanning the faces. “Where did Paul go?”

Everyone’s heads pivot, like Daud is just bullshitting them.

“Fucking hell, where could he have run off to?” Lizzy grumbles. “Everyone’s asleep.”

Daud waves his hand. “Just leave him for now. Can’t have gotten into too much trouble in here.”

“So what I’m getting is,” Jerome leads in, still dead-eyed staring at Vasco. “We need a room, but she’ll tunnel her way out of anything we put her in.”

“Unless it’s metal.”

“What about brick?” Galia leans over and knocks on one of the walls.

Jerome shakes his head. “The exterior walls are all brick, but the interior ones are drywall.”

“Drywall’s easy to punch through,” Daud says.

Vasco just continues nodding to himself, eyes trained on the tiling of the floor. “Yes, brick  _ might  _ hold her. But that’s a big might, and if she broke through an exterior wall she’d be free to roam all of Dunwall. Even Lady Kaldwin knew that wouldn’t be wise.”

“You know, the engine room has that metal grating on the floor!” Edgar says excitedly. “And on the ceiling! The walls are brick, but it’s all underground!”

“Except you locked us out of the damn engine room, Wakehole. Remember that?”

“Oh, yeah…” Edgar’s shoulders slump.

A door slams. “I’m ba-a-ack!” Paul throws open his arms as he comes around the corner. “What’d I miss?”

“Where have you been?!” Lizzy stands up with a fury. “Daud was worried sick about you!”

“I really wasn’t.”

“Calm your balls, guys. I just went out for a smoke.” He plops down in between Daud and Jerome, and Daud takes one whiff before leaning away. He doesn’t know what Paul was smoking, but it wasn’t a cigarette.

“Long-ass smoke break.”

“I needed one after that. So.” Paul crosses his legs, leans forward with his elbows braced against his thighs. “Fill me in.” 

 

* * *

 

They settle on a cage.

Though, as this is a shopping mall and not some sort of kennel, there are no cages available for use. They’ll have to build one.

Jerome draws up the plans quickly as the rest of the group breaks off, scouts out the mall for suitable prisons. The Dressmaker continues to sit there, cradling Hypatia’s body. Daud sneaks to the back where Jerome keeps a hidden morphine stash for him.

“I’m sorry, man.”

Jerome doesn’t look up from his work, and neither does the Dressmaker when he responds.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Daud ducks down under the counter.

“I didn’t know Fleet was gonna take your letter. So I’m sorry for that, at least.” Scratching at his paper. “Fuck, I really thought we were finally going to have a happy reunion for once. This entire group’s just been fucked five ways to Fugue. Thalia with her grandma, Paul with his best friend, the Copper kids with their ma and brother…”

“Daud found Thomas,” the Dressmaker points out.

“Yeah, but his little girl is still…” Jerome scoffs. “It just sucks, that’s all. Shitty luck.”

“One day this will all be behind us.” The Dressmaker blows out a shaky breath. “That Vasco boy will be able to cure Alex. We’ll put an Emperor on the throne and the plague will be over with, and you’ll be able to send for your brother.”

“I know.” Jerome smiles, laughs a bit. “Just hope our aunt hasn’t turned him out on his ass.”

Morphine pills in hand, Daud creeps out from behind the counter.

“You said he can perform basic tasks, yes?”

“Yeah, but he gets distracted real easy. Can’t really pull his weight.”

Daud Blinks away as silently as he entered and catches up with the rest of the crew, makes up some lie about having to piss when Lizzy asks him about it. 

The plans for the cage are simple enough-fifteen foot square, ten feet tall, all welded shut so Hypatia can’t manipulate the locks. They could pass shit through the bars, and they’d have to cut her out once they had a cure or it came time to move her. Simple, crude, but it would work.

As for material, there’s plenty of steel platforms and railings around the district that no one’s using. Jerome has a welder in the back of his shop, for some reason, despite not knowing how to use it. Paul apparently knows how to weld, while Jerome claims to have read a book about it once and ‘understands the theory’.

Lizzy and Galia volunteer for material collection and shoo Edgar away when he offers to come. He mopes next to Daud as they wait for the girls to bring back the scrap metal, him being banished to assembly due to nobody wanting him to fuck up his back even further. Daud mostly ignores him and chats with Vasco until Paul fires up the welder and yells like he’s riding into battle.

And Daud backs away until his heels hit the wall, he sees the metal spark and turn red and glow and it sizzles against his flesh and the witches laugh-

And Jerome gently takes him by the shoulders, Paul pushing up his helmet in concern, and Vasco suggests he goes to help the girls.

He catches up to them quickly, on the rooftops as he suspected. Blink making this job remarkably simple. Galia gives him an odd look when he joins them, but Daud makes a comment about making sure they don’t kill each other and Lizzy tells her to shut up.

The work is easy but physically taxing. Daud sets his mind to unwinding the screws, focuses on the burn in his muscles as he picks up each load. If the boys find their speed odd, they don’t comment on it. 

They work in silence, for the most part. Daud breaks it as they survey the canal, searching for the last bits of scrap they’ll need.

“Can you get into the archives?” Daud keeps his face straight and set on the ground, but he still sees Galia blink at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Like, the Royal Archives?”

“No, just the city ones. Or the national. It doesn’t matter.”

“I mean, I can’t, but I know people who can.”

“I need a forensics file.” His fingers itch for a cigarette, but not now. Not yet. “Anything related to the murder of Jessamine Kaldwin.”

“Who?” Lizzy’s voice comes from the other side of the rooftop.

“Delilah’s sister,” Galia tells her, then turns back to Daud with a funny face. “That happened, like, ten years ago though, wasn’t it? And didn’t they catch the guy?”

“It’s relevant. Trust me.”

“Why?” Galia continues peering at him curiously. “Do you think Delilah arranged that too?”

“I’m sure she did, but I have questions about how.” He’s actually not carrying any cigarettes. Damn Thomas, stealing his weapons and then his cigs. He’ll have to tell Daud sooner or later where he hid his back-ups, and then he’ll find his smokes. “I need the reports, autopsy results, everything. The whole murder book, if you can get it.”

Galia nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I can get my hands on that. Give me a few days.”

 

* * *

 

They finish right as the sun begins to peak over the rooftops. The floor and one side of the cage made from the grates that made up the various walkways and platforms across the city, the other sides and the top hewn from the railings, metal beams welded in sideways and longways. All bolted into the floor.

Edgar mentions Old Hat had an arc pylon and goes to dig it out of storage. He and Lizzy quiet Daud and the Dressmaker’s protests, saying that he bought it back when Billie was still alive. When her laws regarding the use of lethal technology were still enforced. The arc pylon physically couldn’t put out enough of a shock to kill. Then Daud questions whether it would even be effective against Hypatia, as she didn’t seem to respond to pain, but Vasco gives them all an impromptu lesson and explains that the pylons work by overloading the nerves and muscles and some other bullshit. Even if she’s not rendered completely unconscious, she’ll still be dazed. Give them time to deal with her. They put up a privacy screen near the cage and set up the pylon behind it, attaching the whale oil tank and the wiring panel to the wall next to the entrance. Daud locks both and pockets the key.

They give her a straw mat to sleep on, just something to keep out the chill in the metal. Lizzy has to point out the need for a chamberpot, and Jerome has the decency to look embarrassed when she reminds him that ladies can’t piss into bottles. Not easily, at least.

It’s all assembled, aside from the last panel. Daud approaches the Dressmaker and drops to his knees.

“It’s time. We have to put her in now.”

“Already?” He blinks, eyes scanning Hypatia’s new living conditions. “Is there-shouldn’t we give her a blanket or something? It gets cold.”

“I didn’t think we should give her something to, you know…” Jerome closes his hand around his throat, and looks away with a shadow to his face when the Dressmaker just stares at him. “Hang herself with.”

“You think she’d-”

“She’s not in her right mind, sir,” Vasco says in a soothing voice. “This is for her own good.”

“I understand.” The Dressmaker nods, but he makes no move. Instead he just looks back down, continues rocking and combing Hypatia’s hair with his fingers. “I know you probably think I’m crazy. I know the way I’ve been acting is mad. She’s a grown woman. I know.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Daud whispers.

The Dressmaker shakes his head. “I lived with my sister when her children were young. She never took much time from work when she gave birth, so I cared for them. I was the one who got up in the middle of the night with them. Slept in the nursery so I could hear when they cried.” He smiles down at her sadly. “So tiny then. When you hold a little baby in your arms, you don’t think about this kind of future. You don’t imagine a world where they’re dead and you’re still alive. You’re not meant to see their beginning, and their end. You’re not meant to see them die. It goes against the natural order of things.”

Daud stays quiet. He holds up a hand at whoever steps up behind him. The Dressmaker doesn’t even seem to notice them.

“I would have given my life to save my nephews,” the Dressmaker says in a low voice. “But it doesn’t work like that. Should. But nothing works the way it should be.” He shakes his head, his eyes shiny. “I thought you were safe, Alex, but now I’m finding out you’ve just been living another nightmare. And I can’t bear it for you. All I can do is help you wake up from it yourself.”

Then the Dressmaker gets to his feet and marches forward. 

Hypatia is a boneless weight as he places her on the mat, her neck lolling and her hair splaying against the surface, straight with static. The Dressmaker bends and kisses her temple. Then he backs out.

Lizzy awkwardly pats his back as they watch Paul and Jerome seal it up, tugging on the bars experimentally. Daud just stands and watches with him. There’s nothing he can do or say to make this any better. 

“Daud and Lizzy should go get some rest,” Jerome finally says, shucking his gloves. “We all got some napping in while we were waiting, but you two haven’t slept since yesterday.”

“Probably send the kid off to bed too,” Galia says with a yawn.

“I’m fine. I can wait until Hypatia wakes up.”

But Vasco is dead on his feet. Probably hasn’t had a good night’s rest in months, and the excitement of the last twelve hours can’t be helping.

The Dressmaker shoves his hands into his pockets, never tearing his gaze from Alexandria. “I’m not going to be able to sleep now. I’ll stay with her. You guys can take my bed.”

They pull Vasco away and show him the cot meant for Hypatia. Daud threatens Lizzy with bodily harm if she doesn’t take the Dressmaker’s bed, because he knows his manners.

Vasco is asleep almost instantly. Daud plops down on the couch and stares at the ground, wondering if he should take his boots off. Lizzy vaults herself over the back and sprawls out over the remaining space, shoving her bare feet into his lap.

“Hey.”

Daud grimaces. “Is there a reason your dirty-ass feet are in my face?”

“Fuck you, they’re clean as a whistle. I wore those boots you got me all night.”

“Did you want a medal?” Daud rolls his eyes. Lizzy crosses her ankles. “How come your toes are only webbed on one foot? Your other one’s fine.”

Lizzy shrugs. “Just born that way, baby. Ma used to call it my duck foot.”

“Huh. That’s kinda cute.”

“Nah, just weird. So.” She shifts, sits up straighter. “You didn’t mention running into Crow Lady and her man slave. How come?”

Daud pokes her pinky toe. It’s webbed together with her fourth, but only at the base. Her index and middle toes are joined up to the knuckle. He wonders if it hurts. Maybe that’s why Lizzy prefers not to wear shoes.

“Daud.”

“Your feet are fucking freezing,” he grumbles, sweeping them off his lap and shifting them under his thighs, both to warm them up and to get them away from his nose.

“Fuck your foot fetish. I’m serious, Daud.”

He stares at the wall, committing the pattern of the flaking paint to memory.

“Did you want to keep it a secret or something? I will if you want me to, but I think our allies should know. They tried to kidnap you. Like, twice. I mean, they’d probably give you back once they realized how annoying you are, but…”

“They weren’t trying to kidnap me.”

Lizzy cocks her head. “No, they were trying to kidnap us both this time. They put a sleep dart in me too. So now it’s my business now.”

She’s right. They tried to knock her out, held her hostage in order to get him to stand down. He hates them for that. His hate for them is a boiling lake, rivaled in depth only by his hate for Delilah, and bringing Lizzy into it has only launched his hatred to new levels he’d previously thought impossible.

Daud stares her down. “I wouldn’t have let them hurt you.”

“Look, I got your back and I know you got mine, but don’t fucking get a protector complex with me.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “I can handle my own.”

“I know you can.” Billie could too. “But that’s my job.”

Her feet dig into the underside of his thighs as she shifts.

“I know.” She breathes out, eyes far away for a moment, then snap back to him. “So if they weren’t trying to spirit us away to their evil bird’s nest of doom, what were they trying to do? You believe they really were there just to talk?”

“No,” Daud growls. “I don’t believe a word that came out of that witch’s mouth.”

“Then what-”

“I don’t  _ know  _ why they were there, Stride. I don’t  _ care.” _

Lizzy pinches her lips up in displeasure, but she looks off to the side instead of responding in turn.

Sure, Daud wonders why they tried to kill Hypatia, who put a hit out on her. He wonders how the hell they keep getting information on him. He wonders about that little girl, about the circumstances that led to them working for Delilah.

He does not wonder why they’re interested in him now. He doesn’t wonder why they’ve avoided killing him or informing Delilah of his survival. The reasons they made the choices they did don’t matter. He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care why they killed Billie.

All Daud knows is that they will die for those choices.

“You can tell the others if you want,” Daud says, staring at his boots. “But don’t...let me break it to Thomas.”

“But you will tell him about it, right?” Lizzy raises her eyebrows, leaning forward. “It was his sister. And you’re his-he deserves to know, is all I’m saying.”

“I know. But it’s a conversation we need to have alone.” He exhales through his nose, closing his eyes. “I lost my shit in there.”

“Yeah, you did. I think anyone would.”

“I put both you and Vasco in danger.” He rubs his eyelids. “I’m as bad as you are with apologies, but I shouldn’t have acted like that. You shouldn’t have had to see me like that.”

“Oh, fuck, quit it with the noble bullshit already. You haven’t done shit to be sorry for. I lost it at them too.”

“Still,” he mumbles.

“Anyone would have lost it at them. They killed your…” Lizzy mumbles, leans back a bit, and breathes out. “Are you ready to, like, talk about her now? The Empress?”

“I don’t talk about Billie with anyone but Thomas.”

“Well, maybe you should? Like, I fully get wanting the fucks who killed her dead, but you just fucking stare at her picture whenever you see it. I was joking when I told Vasco that you have no facial expressions, but you seriously just look blank when you’re not around Thomas.” She shakes her head. “I’m no Trimble, but your head’s fucked, man. I get that it hurts, but you’re just picking at the wound.”

“I’m not unloading all my bullshit onto you, Stride.”

“Fine, fine.” She extracts her feet and sits up. “When you swallow your pride, I have a bottle of whiskey set aside with our names on it. I won’t even remember what you blathered about the morning after.”

“This isn’t a pride thing, and I don’t drink.”

“Well, you should do that too.” She picks up a folded afghan from a nearby chair and chucks it at him. “I’d say you’re welcome to come cuddle in Dress-dude’s bed, but you’ll probably turn down that gesture of goodwill as well. So don’t freeze your dick off out here. Night.”

 

* * *

 

Footsteps outside the door. Heavy, clacking metal, voices calling out to each other.

Daud backs against the wall and holds Billie tighter.

Footsteps or his own traitorous heart? He can’t tell. They’ll hear from outside. They’ll hear and they’ll storm in and no lock will keep them out.

Billie squirms in his arms.

“Daud!” she hisses. “Let me go!”

“Quiet!”

She attempts to kick him in the knees, but he doesn’t falter. Her little fingers at his forearm, wrapped tightly around her waist. He wraps his other arm around her midsection and pins her elbows to her side.

A bang. Not loud enough to be a gunshot, but sure sounded like one. Would they shoot her? They want her alive. They want a doll to dress up and put words in her mouth. A pretty corpse whose death will stand for anything they want it to. Perfect.

“Daud! Put me down!”

She twists, but Daud only holds her tighter. Digs his nose into her hair and watches the sliver of light that seeps through the crack of the door through the filter of her flyaway curls.

He won’t let them touch her. She’s too little, too young to protect herself, not from something of this magnitude, so Daud has to do it. He has to stand in front of her, take the blows meant for her and show her how to do it for herself when he’s gone.

They won’t let him. If they find her, they’ll take her away and won’t let Daud near her. She’ll be vulnerable and confused and people will take advantage of that and she shouldn’t have to live like that in the first place. They’ll put her in pretty dresses and wire her mouth shut so they can speak out of it like a puppet. She won’t understand what’s happening. Daud is the only one who can see them for the vultures they are. He’s the only one who can protect her.

Billie thrashes harder. “Daud, that hurts!”

“Be still! They’ll hear you!”

“No! Let me go!”

But Daud just grips her tighter, and Billie whimpers. He can feel her bones crunch under his arms, but it doesn’t deter him. They can’t hear her when she yells, but they will if her feet touch the ground, he knows. If she breaks free of him, they’ll find her and grab her and they’ll be able to do anything to her then.

Daud holds his hand over Billie’s mouth. It comes away red with her blood. She yells and demands- _ commands  _ him.

“Let me go, I am the  _ Empress!” _

Yes, and Empresses are just pieces on the chessboard. Meant to be played and used and sacrificed to win the game. Empresses can sometimes die.

Out of his control. Out of his protection. He can’t. He just  _ can’t. _

“If you go with them,” he hisses into her ear. “You’ll be signing your own death warrant!”

Billie shudders and beats her fists against his arm all the more furiously.

Outside their hiding spot, the Spymaster’s agents run back and forth. Yelling to each other. They’ll snatch her away and tear her away from Daud and they might just kill him for trying to keep their princess from them but he doesn’t care.

“Daud!” There’s tears in her voice, gasps of pain as he presses her into his chest and crushes her lungs. “Daud, stop, you’re hurting me! Let me go!”

He can’t.

“Daud, please, I can’t breathe!” 

He  _ can’t. _

She thrashes. She cries tears of blood _.  _ Daud only holds her tighter.

“Let me go, Daud, please  _ that hurts you’re hurting me let me go Daud just let me go. _

 

* * *

 

Daud wakes up to something hitting him in the face. He grabs for it-a spool of thread. Green. In front of him, Vasco stands with a palmful of colored spools.

“Afternoon,” he says with a smile.

Daud grimaces and sits up. Six more spools clatter to the floor.

“Yeah, I’ll put those back now…”

Vasco gathers up the threads and trudges back to wherever the fuck he got them from in the first place while Daud brings his hands up to rub his temples. “What time is it?”

“About half past noon. Lizzy’s in the bathroom.”

“Has Hypatia woken up yet?”

“Most likely. I haven’t heard anything from the shop-which can be good news or bad, depending on how you look at it.”

Lizzy strides out of the bathroom with her eyes half closed, and Daud wonders why the majority of them were sharing one bathroom in the mill when every one of these stores had their own. “You good, Stride?”

“Dropped my pants and it looked like a goddamn murder scene,” she grumbles, opening her eyes. “Like the universe is rewarding me with all the blood I didn’t spill last night.”

Daud has to stifle a smile at that. “Sorry. Can’t relate.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t rub it in. You gotta piss before we visit Doctor Strange?”

“If you’re having trouble with symptoms,” Vasco pipes up from the other side of the room. “I can make some fennel tea later, Lizzy.”

“You’re one of those people who just has to be helpful, aren’t you?” Lizzy rolls her eyes, then turns to Daud and points in Vasco’s direction. “I like this kid. We’re keeping the kid.”

“We don’t really have a choice.” 

“You know, I’m usually not a big tea person, but that would actually be really nice,” Lizzy says as Vasco returns to them. “But I’ve never heard of fennel helping with cramps.”

“Oh, my mother swears by it.”

Vasco and Lizzy discuss moon teas as they trudge over to the store designated as Hypatia’s holding cell. It’s quiet, which Daud takes as a good sign. 

A good sign that dissipates the moment they lift up the door.

“I smell blood! Familiar blood! My weaseling little assistant!”

So Grim Alex is awake, then.

Vasco freezes up for a moment, only until Lizzy gives his shoulder a pat and Daud pulls the door down behind them. He nods, balling his fingers into fists and steps forward.

There’s a clang, and Alex is clinging to the side of the cage like a tree frog as they round the partition. Snarling, gasping. Inhuman.

“Alex, it’s me!” The Dressmaker yells from his place on the other side of the cage. “Uncle Eugene! Don’t you recognize me?”

“His name is Eugene?” Lizzy whispers to Jerome, who’s standing there with his arms crossed. He only shrugs. “You’ve known him for how long and you don’t even know his name?”

“He went by the title even before we met. It was on his mailbox!”

Thank the Void, Daud can only think, he can finally stop calling him the Dressmaker.

“I mean, it fits,” Lizzy mumbles. “He look like a Eugene.”

“Like a complete nerd.”

“Yup.”

“You’ve really done yourself in now, dear Vasco.” Alex stares him down with a grin, but her eyes are wild. Angry. “Dug your own grave. When I get out, I’m going to tear open your chest and dine on your still-beating heart.”

“Wow.” Lizzy nods. “Edgy.”

Alex throws herself against the side of the cage. It dings with an echo, but doesn’t budge. The walls are holding true. Which is good, considering Daud will likely have to kill her if she escapes now. Without another tranquilizer and another place to put her, they couldn’t hope to hold her.

The Dressmaker- _ Eugene  _ wrings his hands. “Please, Alex-”

“Hypatia isn’t here, you fool!” she screams, whirling on him. “I put her to sleep as I please, and she wakes when I allow it. And you?” She cackles. “I will  _ never  _ allow her near you! You’ll never see her again!”

“Fascinating.”

It’s then that Daud notices Trimble. Most of the furniture in the store has been cleared out, looted for necessities in the weeks prior or dumped unceremoniously out in the hall to clear the room for this. Trimble occupies a single chair shoved up against the wall, one of the only pieces of furniture left in the room. He hunches forward and scribbles in his dumb little book.

“So, in your mind, the identity of Alexandria Hypatia is more than just a mask you wear to blend in with society. She’s her own persona, separate from yours.”

“Alexandria  _ is  _ her own person!” Eugene cries. He motions to Alex in the cage without looking her way. “This is...some sort of growth. A sickness of the mind.”

“Oh? And how can you be so sure that  _ she’s  _ the remnants of your lovely niece and not myself? Hmm?”

“Fascinating, fascinating.” More scribbling, Trimble nodding along to himself. Next to him, Paul gives the stink-eye.

“Dude.”

“Don’t refer to me in that crude manner, Pablo.”

Paul raises his hands and looks to Daud with a face that expresses both confusion and incredible annoyance.

“Where’s Edgar and Galia?” Daud inches closer to him, keeping his eye on Alex all the while. Paul seems more than happy to step away from Trimble.

“They’re giving the deets to the rest of the assholes who weren’t here last night.”

“So...Thalia?” 

“And Lydia.” Paul nods, still thinking. “And maybe Zhukov’s back. I don’t actually know.”

“I’m going to shove that book of yours down your throat,” Alex growls. “No bars can hold me. When I break free of this prison, I am going to tear you all open!”

“This isn’t like you.” Eugene shakes his head. “You’ve always been so quiet. So gentle. Alex, I know you’re in there-”

“I  _ am  _ Alex!”

“No!” He backs away. “You’re...you’re some sort of possession! Some spirit from the Void Delilah summoned to possess my niece!”

“I  _ am  _ you niece.” Alex stands off, staring at him with her eyes aglow. “I’ve been here. I’ve been watching through the eyes of my sister, tied together since our birth. I was there when she bit the heads off her dolls as a girl. I was there when she stabbed her brother’s hand with a fork for stealing off her plate, and I was there when she punched a schoolboy for looking up her skirt! I’ve  _ always  _ been here. You all just chose to ignore me!”

_ ‘A dark place in her mind has overgrown,’  _ Billie whispers as Alex pounds her fists on the bars.  _ ‘In that jungle, no empathy exists. No doubt. Only the most basic, primal instinct.’ _

Eugene’s eyes are wide and shiny, but he doesn’t blink. “You’re lying. I don’t believe you. She’s in there somewhere.”

“She is. In a prison, much like this one. Buried deep.” She laughs coldly. “But when I get my hands on you, I’ll dig her up and let her watch. She’ll see through our shared eyes while I take you apart, dig my hands into your lungs and rut against your red skull!”

“What the fuck.” Lizzy blinks. “Seriously, what the fuck? I’ve heard of eating fetishes, but this? Oh my fuck, Trimble, stop writing this down!”

“It’s cannibalism, Elizabeth.” Trimble’s pen doesn’t so much as pause. “It’s not a fetish if she doesn’t gain any sexual pleasure from it.”

“Oh, I do.” On cue, Alex snakes her hand in between her legs with a smile.

Lizzy waves her hand. “Okay, stop. Stop! We’re not doing this!”

Daud sees Jerome step over to Eugene, backed against the wall with his fingers curled against the plaster. Fuck it, Lizzy can deal with Alex. Daud follows, taking Eugene’s other arm and leading him out. Vasco follows soon after.

“It can’t be true.” Eugene holds his head in his hands as Jerome gently pushes him into a seat. “That isn’t her. It can’t be.”

“I’m really sorry, man.” Jerome claps a hand on his shoulder.

Eugene shakes his head. “She did do that, though. Bit the heads off her dolls. She was always chewing and biting strange things. We all just thought it was a teething thing…”

“I mean, it might be.” Jerome shrugs, looking to Daud. “Don’t all little girls go through a ‘torment my dolls’ phase?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Billie never liked dolls.

“And I remember her getting in trouble for beating up a boy,” Eugene continues. “It was out of character, but she was a teenage girl! They do strange things!”

Vasco purses his lips, looks around with a worried expression. “I wish I could tell you she’s lying. And I’m no psychologist-my major is in pediatrics, but my theory is that the persona was formed from backed-up anger that Alexandria never felt comfortable expressing. Everyone has that sort of shadow self, the part they hide from others. The serum gives form to that.”

Daud shudders to think about what he’d be like under the same effects.

“How the hell is that supposed to make him feel better?” Jerome squints.

Vasco flushes. “Well, I...that’s just what I think, I can’t  _ lie  _ to him…”

“Hey!”

Thomas waves as he rounds the corner, followed closely by Lydia and Rose. He breaks into a light jog as he approaches, sticking his hands into his coat. “Galia filled us in. Is...is everything alright?”

“No,” Eugene says glumly.

“Hypatia isn’t in her right mind right now,” Daud tells him. “What exactly were you told?”

“That she’s sick, and has some kind of split personality disorder.”

“Edgar said something about a werewolf?” Lydia’s caught up to them now, smoothing her ponytail out over her shoulder. “I couldn’t really follow him.”

Rose walks around and leans over Eugene’s seat. “Are you okay?”

Eugene shakes his head again, but then he drops his hands and makes to grab at her arms. “Dear, don’t try to kneel, you can’t…”

“They said that Hypatia is the Butcher,” Thomas continues. “Is that really true?”

“Unfortunately.”

He glances in Lydia’s direction. “Is she the one who…”

Daud turns to Rose, still gripping Eugene’s hands. “Rose. You recognized Hypatia last night.”

She stands up straight, staring at him with big eyes.

“Don’t deny it.”

“I did…” She nods, and begins tugging on her dreadlocks.

“Where have you seen her before?”

“When I lived with my mother.” Her mouth set, eyes hard. Clammed up.

_ ‘She’s hiding many things, but only because she’s afraid. She will tell you what you need to know. Her respect for you outweighs her fear.’ _

So she is still afraid of him. Daud can’t exactly blame her. He’s afraid of himself sometimes.

He’s not going to force it out of her. Billie says it’s not important, so he’ll earn that trust. It can wait. The rest of this can’t.

“Was she the person who attacked you and Lydia?”

Rose bites her lip. “I don’t know,” she answers.

“It was hard to see,” Lydia pipes up. “But she...they spoke. I might be able to tell from the voice.”

“Let’s go, then. Rose, you can stay here with Eugene if you don’t want to-”

“Eugene?” She raises her head, confused.

Eugene raises his hand.

“You have a real name?”

“Is that okay, that we call you Eugene?” Jerome leans over. “I’ll call you whatever you want, but…”

“Did you...did you people really not know my name?”

Everyone looks away and shuffles their feet. Thomas speaks to the floor.

“You never told us what it was.”

“I assumed Jerome told...I thought it was an inside joke, calling me that.” He turns to Jerome. “You didn’t know my name?”

Jerome swings his hands by his side. “Dude, by the time we became friends I’d known you too long to ask.”

“My parents always referred to you as ‘The Dressmaker’,” Lydia says with a blush. “My sisters and I tried to remember what you name was, but we couldn’t.” She ducks, hides her face in her hands. “I’m sorry!”

Eugene sighs. “It’s fine. Call me whatever strikes your fancy; I’m not picky.”

“Hypatia says she used to call him Uncle Gene,” Vasco helpfully supplies.

“Oh!” Rose perks up. “Can I call you that? I have a couple uncles, but I don’t know when I’ll see them again.” 

 

* * *

 

“You don’t have to do this,” Eugene tells Rose, gripping her hand in his. “We can send Lydia in first. If she can confirm…”

Rose shakes her head. “I’m not going to wimp out now. Lydia’s doing it. I can handle it.”

On her other side, Lydia draws her black sweater tighter over her chest. “It’s okay. We’ll be safe with Daud right here.”

She has far too much faith in his skills. His and Lizzy’s wounds are evidence of that.

“Just don’t stress yourself too much, honey.”

“Will you quit it? I’m fine.”

Daud holds the door for the group. He has half a mind to hold Thomas back, but it’s pointless to try and shield him from this. He’ll be dealing with other grisly shit soon enough, and it’s not like he won’t find out what’s going on anyway. He ducks under the door, leaning over and whispering something to Vasco while Daud closes up behind them.

“Should I be insulted by that?” Lizzy’s voice echoes across the room. “I happen to like chicken.”

“And I wonder if the meat off your ribs tastes like it.”

“What the fuck are you even talking about now?” Daud steps into the light. Paul gives a sigh of relief.

“Daud! Thank fuck, I was going mad here with these three.”

“Why are you lumping me in with these kooks?” Lizzy motions to Trimble, who hasn’t appeared to move aside from his writing hand.

Daud turns. Lydia is stuck in place, her eyes wide and her legs trembling. Rose’s face is completely blank. He steps aside so the girls can approach the cage.

Lydia steps forward first, then pauses. Reaches out and links her hand in Rose’s, which snaps her out of whatever trance she’s in.

Alex notices and turns. Smiles, showing off her long canines. “Well, look at this. The wayward daughter, returned.”

“Are you talking about me?” Rose asks, forced inflection in her voice. “Or her? Because we’re both still very wayward.”

Alex growls. Daud steps in, just to put a body between them. “Was she the person who attacked you?”

Lydia nods without hesitation. “I remember that voice. I don’t forget a voice.”

“The eyes are weird-” Rose waves her free hand in front of her face. “-but I can see it. Makes sense.” She stares. “I wondered if it was you.”

“You’ve been looking over your shoulder, wondering when I’d be along to tear your limbs off and watch you wriggle like a worm.” Alex laughs. “Poor little mouse. They wrote you off.”

“That’s enough.” Daud waves his hand. “You girls don’t have to deal with her anymore. Thank you.”

To his surprise, Lydia shakes her head. “No. I want to know why she tried to kill us. I want her to look us in the eye and tell us why.”

He’s never thought of Lydia as being the assertive Boyle sister. Daud might have to rethink that.

“You heard the lady.” Daud turns back to Alex. “Why did you attack Rose and Lydia?”

Alex shrugs. “They were there.”

“Then why were  _ you  _ there? Did Delilah tell you to kill them?”

“Why would you try to kill me?” Lydia blinks her big green eyes. “Who wanted me dead?  _ Why?” _

“You aristocrats are so full of yourselves.” Alex’s lip curls in disgust. “Thinking everyone cares. Cares enough that you live, cares enough to spend the money to change that. I had instructions to kill a man at Draper’s Market. I did so. And you happened to cross my path as I took my leave.”

“One of the guys selling meat pies did disappear that week,” Jerome muses. “But no one ever found…” He catches sight of Alex’s grin. “Oh. Fuck, I’m glad I didn’t buy any.”

“That’s disgusting.” Lydia raises her finger. “But there had to be a reason you targeted us. There are dozens of people living at the waterfront.”

“You were alone. I was hungry.” She licks her lips. “And you smelled  _ tantalizing.  _ I didn’t realize you had a witch following you.” She turns her gaze to Rose. “I’ll give you credit, little mockingbird, I didn’t realize it was you until I sunk my teeth into your meaty thigh. You’ve masked your scent, and that of everyone here. My mistress has been sending agents to Morley looking for the heir, and here he is. Right under my nose and I wouldn’t even be able to tell if I wasn’t seeing him with my own eyes.”

Thomas leans forward. “Is that what’s up with the perfume you made?”

“No,” Rose whispers. “I’ll tell you later.”

“My mistress will be told of all this,” Alex continues. “She’ll know of Daud’s survival, mark my words. She is not a woman who likes being proven wrong.”

Rose scoffs. “Then maybe she should try harder to be right.”

Alex growls. “I told her. She knows you got away. She _knows_ you’re alive. And she told me to do whatever’s necessary to _shut you up.”_ Her voice dips ever lower, and her eyes widen with perverse excitement. “I am going to tear your daughter from your womb, and you will listen to her cries as I dine on newborn flesh.”

Daud waves his hand. “Okay, this has gone on long enough. Somebody get her out of here.”

Rose opens her mouth to protest, but her face is ghost-white. He can see her bare knees trembling, under her skirts, and green veins pop from her clenched fist.

Vasco steps forward and winds his arm in hers. “Let’s go. You should sit down.”

“Yeah, that...I should.”

They wait until they hear the door roll shut behind them, Alex grinning all the way. Daud is mildly surprised that no one else chose to follow, but everyone is riveted. Grim Alex is like a train accident. Gory, horrible, and you can’t look away.

“You’re not going to get your hands on her.” Eugene stands tall, hands shaking but balled into fists at his side. “You’re not going to touch anyone here. We’re going to cure Alexandria and you, you will never hurt anyone else ever again.”

Alex cackles. “And who’s going to stop me? You?”

“Daud and Elizabeth fought you once, and they’ll beat you again.”

“Ha!” Alex turns. “They were helpless without the aid of dear Vasco and his needle. And even then, they couldn’t take me on their own!”

“I think it’s time we get down to business,” Daud says with more confidence than he feels.

Alex sets her hungry eyes on him and smiles. “Oh, why? Do you not like to be reminded of it? How you had to rely on the sweet black queen to save your life? How it took all four of you, working together with your Empress’s murderers, to match me?”

Thomas’s intake of breath makes Daud’s chest clench painfully.

“Daud,” he says, his voice wavering. “The Crow Queen? She was there?”

“And the rat.” Alex waves her hand, still grinning. “If it weren’t for them, you’d both be chained to my floor, helpless as I gnawed on your fingers.”

“And if it weren’t for us, they would have killed you,” Daud states. “I could have let her put a bullet in your skull. I’m the one who  _ saved  _ you.”

“No. You wanted to save Hypatia. If it were possible to kill me without her dying, you would have gladly stepped aside.” She smiles and tilts her head. “Think about it. You owe your pathetic little life to the same pair of hands that gutted your pretty Empress and spilled her entrails all over the floor. Doesn’t that just  _ kill  _ you?”

“Okay, you know what?” Lizzy cracks her neck. “We’ve been running around for weeks, getting our asses blown up and paddling old men through fucking hellfire water, all for one fucking name. So let’s get it out of her so we can move the fuck on with our lives.”

“Oh?” Alex perks up. “So now you want something, from little old me? And I thought you were just playing the kind hostess.”

She grins, showing off all her teeth. Daud takes a step back on instinct.

Lizzy stares her down. “What’s the name of the witch Gardenia?”

“And what makes you think I’ll tell you?”

“Because Kaldwin locked you up too,” Lizzy states factually. “You weren’t her ally either. You were her tool, used whenever she needed people afraid and put back in the toolbox when you weren’t needed. You can’t be loyal to her.”

“Who used who, really?” Alex laughs. “What could she have given me? Power? Money? No, no, I had everything I wanted. Blood under my fingernails and the taste of flesh on my tongue.”

“There’s nothing they denied you?” Paul tries. Daud jumps when the voice comes from over his shoulder-Paul is just walking back in. He didn’t even see him leave. “Nothing they said no to?”

“They never said no to me,” she hisses, then turns on her heel. “But they are liars. Lying, filthy liars. Oh, how I long to tear their tongues from their skulls!”

Eugene jumps back at the outburst, but Lizzy is undeterred. “What did they lie about?” She presses. “What did they promise you?”

“HIM!”

She whirls around and thrusts her fingers in Daud’s direction with such spontaneity that Daud physically recoils.

“She promised me  _ him!  _ He was the hangman, the one who’d take the fall!” She grips the bars, her weird blue eyes dead-set on Daud. “The pieces were already in place for when he returned, the witnesses and the evidence planted in his room. To show everyone that Daud didn’t  _ really  _ go to beg for aid. That he stayed in Dunwall, where no one expected him to be, murdering for the honor of his  _ precious little Billie!” _

She laughs, and all the hairs on the back of Daud’s neck stand up.

“The circumstances would close around his neck like a noose, and the Empress would have no choice but to convict her beloved bodyguard.” She throws her head back and  _ cackles. _ “How betrayed she’d feel! How stupid for believing him all these years! And then my mistress would be there, the rock in her ocean, and she would be by her side as she sentenced the man who raised her to death. My mistress would be free to instill one of her own as the new Royal Protector, and aside from the boy, there would be no one to stop us from putting her under our spell. There wouldn’t be enough of her mind left by the time I went to claim my reward, to care when all that was left of Daud was a puddle of blood and a pile of gnawed bones on the floor of his prison cell.

“But  _ she  _ ruined those plans!” Alex snarls, turning away. “My mistress had the Empress wrapped around her finger, doubting her most faithful servant, her lovesick bodyguard. Oh, how she wondered about you!” She grins at him, her eyes alight with malice. “Does that hurt? To know your sweet Empress had second thoughts about you? How she wondered if there were ulterior motives to your actions, whether you wanted more from her than she was willing to give?”

“If you have a story to tell,” Daud says, his arms crossed and his teeth grit. “Then tell it.”

Alex laughs like a hyena. “Oh, don’t you worry. She didn’t stray for long.” She pushes away from the bars, disgust in her face. “She wouldn’t believe her, my mistress, when she told the Empress her suspicions. No matter how the cards were played, she refused to believe you were the Butcher. Didn’t think you had it in you anymore. You’ve proved her wrong, though, in the past months. Shame she isn’t here to see it.”

Daud clutches the Talisman a little tighter.

“She trusted you more than she trusted my mistress. And just like that,” she flicks her wrist. “Billie Lurk was more trouble alive than she was dead. Oh, I begged to be the one to kill her! To take her apart, to savor the taste of her heart and the sound of her screams, to give all the Empire a  _ show!  _ And they denied me! Said they had grander plans! But they told me,  _ promised me  _ that when it was done and you were in Coldridge, then I could have her! Then I could taste royal flesh!”

She curls her fingers, as if clawing at the air. “But they lied. They  _ lied.  _ They threw her to the hagfish instead. Let  _ them  _ have her meat and chew the marrow from her bones. She wouldn’t die! She was making such a horrible fuss, and  _ he  _ had to panic. And then my mistress said it was better for her to rot in the river water for a few days anyway, let her bones  _ soak  _ in all the tears of Dunwall. Oh, they pulled her out when she was nice and ripe, put her in a box, but it was wrong.” She shakes her head. “It was all wrong!”

The room echoes with silence. Then Lizzy clears her throat.

“So, uh, obviously Delilah’s no friend of yours,” she says with a confidence in her voice that Daud certainly wouldn’t be able to fake. “So why not give us Gardenia’s name? Let us fuck their shit up a bit.”

She laughs and drops to the floor. “Why bother? It’s much more fun to watch you flop around like fish out of your bowls.”

“But you…” Lizzy raises her hands. “You just gave us, like, a fuckload of information! Why would you tell us all that, if you don’t want to work with us?”

At that, Grim Alex smiles. Slowly, pulling back her lip and baring her teeth. “My love, what good was that story to you?”

 

* * *

 

Daud dips out after a while, knowing they’re not going to get anything out of Alex for the time being. Maybe after a few days, wearing her down with idleness. Or from Trimble’s voice.

Lizzy follows, looking more rattled than Daud would have thought possible for her. Thomas and Lydia take their leave as well, Eugene coming with them to check on Rose.

“What were they there for?” Thomas asks as they step outside, his eyes wide in concern but anger coloring his voice.

“I wasn’t about to play twenty questions with them.”

“But they were there for Hypatia.” Thomas presses his mouth into a thin line. “They didn’t hurt you?”

Daud sighs. “No, Thomas. They didn’t hurt me.”

“They said they just wanted to talk.” Lizzy shrugs. “Dunno if I believe that. Rat guy got his hands on me, tried to do a dramatic hostage standoff, but he didn’t account for my teeth.”

“You bit him?” Eugene stares, repulsed.

“Yeah...in light of all this, that does seem kinda gross.”

“She got him to drop her.” Daud rolls his eyes. “That’s all that matters.”

Lizzy nods. “Hope he gets his rabies shot. I don’t have rabies, but those things hurt like a motherfucker.”

“They just let you walk away?” Thomas turns back to Daud. “With Hypatia?”

Daud coughs. “They were the ones who walked away. More like ran.” He meets Thomas’s eye. “I tried to follow them, but they were too fast.”

“That’s good.” Thomas nods. “Daud, they’re like, witches or something. You can’t fight them on your own.”

He has no idea.

“I’ll find a way to smoke them out,” Thomas continues. “Have a team of agents apprehend them. Just the two of you, they’d slaughter you.” He turns back to Lizzy. “I’m just glad you were able to think on your feet and get away.”

“I’m glad the Rat King is built like some demented spider with arms too long for his sleeves,” Lizzy mumbles. “You’d think with how much coin they make they could afford some quality tailoring, but no.”

This is why Daud wears gloves that go over his sleeves, practically to his elbow. No exposed flesh for darts or acids or sharp teeth to find.

“The guy’s brown, by the way.”

“Brown?” Lydia blinks in confusion.

“His skin’s brown. Not like, Empress or Vasco level dark, more like Reed’s skin color. He ain’t Gristolian, that’s for sure.”

“He had long hair too,” Daud mumbles, though he’s not sure why he’s adding to the conversation. If his suspicions are correct, he won’t need anyone else’s help figuring out the Rat King’s identity.

“Might be Serkonan or Tyvian,” Thomas muses, then shakes his head. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Weren’t you kidnapped by them?” Lydia asks, tilting her head. “I suppose they didn’t reveal their faces to you.”

“I was out cold. The only time I even got a look at...at her, was when…” Thomas trails off, his face going pale.

“They’re not going to touch you ever again,” Daud says to him. “I won’t let them get close to you.”

“I know.” His eyes flash. “I’m not worried about myself. I’m not the one they’re focused on.”

“Lizzy and I can handle ourselves.”

“Against witches?”

“Delilah is a witch! What did you think was going to happen when it came time to take her out?”

“They killed my sister!” Thomas’s chest heaves. 

“And I couldn’t protect you then,” Daud finishes quietly. Thomas shakes his head.

“That’s not what I was going to say, Daud…”

“But it’s what you were thinking.”

“Don’t put words into my mouth.”

The others have scooted away, looking anywhere but Daud and Thomas while they fight. Daud can’t exactly blame them, nor summon the energy to care about putting them in this awkward situation.

“I know I failed you and your sister that day.” Daud closes his eyes, breathes out.

“You didn’t-”

_ “I did.  _ But things are different now.”

“How?!” Thomas folds his arms. “You keep beating around the bush and avoiding my questions-I’ve known you my entire life, Daud, but apparently I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”

“You  _ know  _ me.” Daud’s voice breaks, traitorously. “You know who I am with you. You don’t need to think about the person I am out there.” 

Thomas doesn’t say anything, only balls up his fists and stares at the floor.

Lizzy coughs and steps forward. “Well, we should probably go make sure Rose hasn’t, like, spontaneously miscarried from dealing with the fucking demon spawn of the Outsider. Surprised nobody had a goddamn heart attack.”

“Yeah.” Daud nods, and reaches out to touch Thomas’s shoulder. “Come on.”

Rose is sitting on a bench with Paul’s pipe in one hand, the other clutched in Vasco’s. 

“Hey,” she says flatly as they approach. “Did you find out what we need?”

“I wish,” Lizzy sighs as she drops herself onto the bench opposite her. Eugene takes the seat next to Rose and wraps his arm around her, pulls her into his chest.

“Don’t think too much about it,” he says with his nose buried in her hair. “You’re safe here. She won’t be out of that cage until we cure her.”

“I know.”

“She’s actually a very nice person,” Vasco says, with a smile too bright for the circumstances. “You know, when she’s not like this.”

“We’re all safe in here,” Thomas says as he and Lydia sit down next to Lizzy. “And as soon as we kick Delilah out, we’ll be in Dunwall Tower. It’s the safest place in the Empire. As long as you don’t try sliding down the bannisters, that is. I chipped a tooth doing that.”

Rose giggles, though the dark look in her eyes doesn’t completely abate.

“Oh, and I guess congrats on having a little girl?” Lizzy sits up straighter. “If she’s actually right about the genital selection of your fetus, that is.”

“I think she might be able to smell it?” Vasco shrugs. “I don’t know how you’d differentiate gender, but I know she’s able to detect pregnancy.”

Rose clicks the toes of her boots together. “I think she’s right. Ricardo said he can always tell, and he told me I’m having a girl too. If two people say the same thing, there’s probably some truth to it.”

“Well, girls are much easier to raise.” Lydia smiles, and Daud does his damndest not to scoff. “You must be relieved.”

“Not really. I was hoping for a boy.”

“Ew, why?” Lizzy wrinkles her nose. “We can teach her to punch things and fight the patriarchy. I mean, I’m not mom material, but if I had to I’d rather have a girl.”

If Daud had his own kids, he probably would prefer a girl too. Mostly because he was raised by women and has no father figure worth drawing from, and for some reason that felt more important with a boy. Not because girls were any easier-anyone who said that clearly never met Billie. He always felt like he ‘got’ Billie better than Thomas anyway.

“I mean, it’s not a big deal,” Rose says. “I love them either way. I’m their mom. That’s my job.” She sits up straighter, a small smile gracing her lips. “Reed’s already jazzed up about having a niece.”

“Well, of course he is!” Lydia claps her hands together. “Babies are exciting!”

They are. Daud finds himself sort of looking forward to the birth. He’s never going to hold that baby, but he can be excited for the rest of them. And it’s still a few years away, but it’ll be nice to have a kid scampering around Dunwall Tower again.

“Hey, one quick question.” Daud holds his hand out. “Then you guys can gush about baby names and shit to your heart’s content.”

“You gotta be a killjoy, don’t you?” Lizzy dramatically sighs.

Daud ignores her and focuses on Rose. “How did you hide our presence from Alex? Is it a bone charm or something?”

“Oh!” She perks up. “No. Well, sort of the same idea. I drew runes in the corners, all around the perimeter here. Oak bark and palm ash...it neutralizes the energies within the circle-or whatever shape this makes. If that makes sense. You might not even be able to tell people are living in here.”

“I’ve never seen any runes or shit in here.” Lizzy squints.

“They don’t have to be that big.” Rose shrugs. “And I’ve been burning juniper and evergreen. Patchouli, when I can get my hands on it.”

“That doesn’t grow outside of Serkonos,” Vasco says. “I can’t imagine it’s very easy to find here, in the middle of quarantine.”

“It’s not. The salvage guys over at the market have had a bottle exactly twice. I ration it, because it’s really good for warding. Not perfect, obviously, but clearly well enough.”

“Can they do that?” Daud’s mouth is dry. “The other witches. Can they sense people with a spell?”

Rose wrings her hands. “It’s complicated. Detection spells don’t hone in on your body, really, but your spiritual energy.”

“Like, a soul or some shit?” Lizzy raises an eyebrow.

“Not really a soul. More like...an aura, I guess would be a closer term? It’s a collection of energies that you carry in your body. Some people are so attuned to this energy that they can see them with the naked eye. For others, they’ll need a spell to reveal them.” She motions as if mimicking waves with her hands, as if they understand what that means. “My runes work by scrambling our energy outside the threshold. So a witch with a detection spell might not be able to see anything past my runes, and Delilah wouldn’t be able to hone in on anyone in specific. That’s probably why she thinks Thomas is in Morley. She can’t detect him in the city.”

Probably why she was so quick to assume Daud was dead as well, he thinks. Fuck.

“But I’ve gone outside since you guys brought me back.” Thomas looks at her inquisitively. “Wouldn’t she be able to sense me then?”

Rose coughs. “Well, yeah. But I help with the laundry. Some pine needles and mugwort in the water…” She shrugs. “It’s not as good as my runes, but it’ll mask your energy. Works for a short period of time.”

“Right, the scents!” Vasco snaps his fingers. “I was wondering how the runes would work on Alex, but that’s it. It’s the incense and the herbs that drive her away.”

“I think so. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really sure if it would work on her.” 

Very...interesting. But all that said, Daud has even less of an idea how the Crow Queen and her coven kept finding them.

“That’s fucking brilliant, Rosie.” Lizzy raises her eyebrows. “You’re one hell of a witch.”

Rose just glares at her. “None of that is witchcraft. It’s just plants.”

 

* * *

 

Lizzy heads off to sleep some more, while Daud bathes and changes. He spends the afternoon helping to prepare dinner, which he spends dodging questions about their encounter with the Crow Queen and ignoring Thalia doing her damnedest to annoy the fuck out of Thomas.

Thomas avoids looking at him. And Daud’s in no mood to deal with him, so he lets it lie.

He helps wash up after dinner, focusing on the uncomfortable wrinkling of his fingers to keep his mind off the twinge in his back. It gets worse when he’s low on sleep, he’s noticed. Or maybe he just notices it more.

“Mr. Daud?”

Daud turns to see Reed standing off to the side, his hands behind his back and his eyes on the floor. He actually hasn’t seen the kid all day-figured he was off being moody. Daud wasn’t going to worry about him if no one else was, so he didn’t pay much attention to his absence.

“Hey, Reed.” Daud turns back to the dishes. “Something on your mind? I’ll be done with these soon.”

“I just…” He drops his hands to his side and draws in a huge breath. “I’msorryforyellingatyoulastnightandbeingmeantouncleGene.”

Daud watches him carefully as he picks up a towel. “Reed,” he says slowly. “Are you apologizing because you’re sorry, or because your sister told you to apologize to me?”

Reed doesn’t answer. Daud dries his hands and taps him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go have a chat.”

He grabs some paper and the packet of crayons he found in the mall, because he was going to give them to Reed anyway, and leads them outside. It’s almost warm out, and it’s been so cold lately that it seems a crime not to enjoy the brief respite from winter. 

The sun is just setting, bathing the world in orange. Daud sits crossed-legged on the asphalt outside the mill and sets the paper and crayons down.

“You like to draw, don’t you?”

Reed nods without looking him in the eye. He selects a brown crayon and starts working. Daud does the same with a black one.

They work in silence for a little bit. Daud hasn’t drawn with crayons in forever-not since Thomas was younger than Reed is now. Thomas was never really the artistic type, but Daud used to try and make time to do  _ something  _ with him. He spent so much time with Billie, he didn’t want Thomas to feel ignored.

Billie never liked to draw, period. The Emperor had her tutored in painting, one of the skills all good ladies had to learn, but she was so hopeless that he actually let her quit. Her hands were not meant for delicate work with watercolors and charcoals.

Daud sets his mind on the ship he’s drawing. The hull and the mast, a little wheel at the front. Finally, he speaks.

“You know why we tell you to do things, Reed?”

There’s no hesitation, no looking up from his paper. “Because you’re bigger than me and you can.”

“...No.”

“Because you like bossing me around?” He raises his eyes then, peeking through his eyelashes.

Daud shakes his head. “No. Nobody likes yelling at you, Reed.”

Reed just stares at him blankly.

“Look, people like me and your sister…” Daud presses his lips together, trying to organize his next words. “We tell you to do things for your own good. We were your age once, and we did stupid things too. And we paid for it. Then we learned better. We’re trying to let you skip right to that last step.”

Reed looks back down to his paper. “My uncle said not to listen to adults just ‘cause they’re adults. ‘Cause sometimes they’re not good people.”

Daud crayon catches on a pebble under his paper, warping the line. “That’s...true too.” He puts the crayon back in the pile. “You have a smart uncle.”

Purple for the sails. Ships were almost entirely motor-powered now, but in the age of sail, the Crown exclusively was allowed to use purple dye for their sails. Billie had told him that. Daud selects the purple crayon and gets to work.

“Reed, I’m going to tell you about...something.” Daud wets his lip. “When I was a little younger than you, someone took me away from my mother.”

Reed nods along, taking the now-unclaimed black crayon. “My sister took me away from our mother too.”

“No, not like that. He was an older man. I didn’t know him.”

“Your pa?” Reed blinks up at him, eyes wide and innocent.

Daud almost laughs at that. It sounds ridiculous, looking back at it, but at the time he had wondered the same. Daud had asked the man if he was his father. The Actor had just laughed at him.

“No. He was a bad person.” Daud blows the air out of his nose. “He...collected kids like me. Had us pick pockets and steal for him.” Among other things, but Reed doesn’t need to hear the details. “So I understand that not all adults are good people. And sometimes you don’t know which ones are going to look out for you and which ones just want to use you.”

It was easier, for him, to just assume that they all wanted to use and hurt him. But even Daud knows that wasn’t true. And it wasn’t what Billie needed to think, not what Thomas needed to think, and it’s not what Reed needs to think now. They deserve to be protected and cared for, to know they can rely on the people around them. They deserve better than what Daud got.

Reed swaps the black crayon out for a grey one. “I know you won’t hurt me,” he says with a degree of confidence in his voice that surprises Daud.

Daud blinks. “I’m not,” he says, even though he doesn’t think he’s the best person for this kid to rely on. 

They continue to draw in silence for a while. Daud adds rigging to the sails, likely completely inaccurate, which Billie would certainly point out if Daud let her see the disgrace to boats everywhere he’s drawing.

“Your uncle’s smart for telling you that,” Daud starts in again. “Because the adults aren’t always right. And you shouldn’t be afraid of saying no.”

“Then why’d you get mad when I said no?”

“Because there’s a difference between not wanting to do something because it’s wrong, or...or because it makes you uncomfortable, and just not wanting to do it. We just told you to go to bed. You can’t say no just because you don’t want to do it. If I told you to, say, go steal some of Lady Thalia’s jewelry, you can refuse because stealing is wrong.”

“My brother and sister stole food all the time.” Reed blinks at him.

Daud sighs and rubs his eyelids. He sucks at these kinds of talks. He should have asked someone else to do it.

“That’s...okay, that’s different, and an entirely different topic. My point  _ is,”  _ He sucks in breath. “People like your sister, they tell you to do things for your own good. If it’s  _ not  _ for your own good, then you can say no.”

Reed is quiet, but then he nods and selects a red crayon. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense.”

“Good. Now, can I ask why you pushed your sister down?”

“Because she made me angry,” he says robotically.

He is so not the right person for this talk, Daud thinks. “Do you think that was right of you? Your sister’s having a baby. Your niece or nephew could have gotten hurt too.”

Reed screws up his face, wrinkles his nose and blinks his shiny eyes.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t hit people, because sometimes you have to.” If they ever find their mother, this woman is going to fucking murder Daud. “But you can’t hurt people just because they made you angry. You made Eugene really upset yesterday and he didn’t hit you, did he?”

It’s then that Reed bursts into tears. He drops the crayon and brings his hands to his face. “I miss my brother,” he says into his palms.

Daud nods, though Reed can’t see it. “I know.”

“I want to go home.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Daud begins shading in the ship with the brown crayon.

“You  _ don’t  _ know!” Reed points his fists on the ground. “You get to go home!”

“Reed, did you sister tell you what I did for your brother in the Distillery District?”

Still wiping away tears, Reed nods.

“So you know he’s going to be okay. When this is over, your sister is going to come work for me and Thomas, and your brother will come live in Dunwall Tower with you two.” He levels a stare in Reed’s direction. “It’s not perfect, I know. But it’ll be okay.”

“I hate this,” Reed mumbles, wiping the back of his hand across his nose. “Don’t you? Thomas said you’re a stoneheart or something. S’why you never cry about the Empress. Why you never look like anything until you’re mad.”

“I don’t like to cry in front of people.” Technically true. “I get angry too, so I understand how you feel. But I don’t hit Thomas and tell him I hate him. He doesn’t deserve that, and neither does your sister.”

“I know,” Reed hiccups. 

“I’m not asking you to apologize,” Daud tells him. “Though if you’re sorry, you should let her know. I’m asking you to keep in mind that your actions have consequences. The things you say, the things you do, they can hurt people. So just think about it before you act.”

Reed nods, tears dripping off his nose.

“Sometimes I think this plague is just going to go on and on,” he says, bringing his arms around his knees. “Until everyone ever dies and it’s the end of the world.”

Daud presses his lips together. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Or everyone will all kill each other.”

Daud is silent. Reed just shakes.

“I’m scared,” he says in a whisper.

Daud reaches out to swipe his thumb under Reed’s left eye. “I know you are. But I’m going to protect you.”

“From everything?” Reed looks at him through his lashes again, bitter and sad. Daud nods as a tear drops from his chin and onto his drawing.

Daud looks down on instinct, actually looks at Reed’s drawing for the first time. Three blind rats, black holes where their eyes should be. Torsos inflated with muscles and long claws, teeth sharp. Muzzles red, red dripping from their empty eye sockets. Weeping blood.

 

* * *

 

The nightmares wake him again.

All blood and bones, viscera and lung tissue laid out on the pavement. Lizzy’s webbed toes severed from her foot, Lydia Boyle’s scream echoing through the air. Billie’s dead eyes, staring forever at the sky.

Daud is exhausted, but he’s not desperate enough to go back to sleep.

He shoves his feet into his boots and grabs his pistol, left on the shelf above his bed next to his candle and bottle of aspirin. Tucks it into his waistband, just to make him feel better. 

Thomas and Rose had been giggling with each other in the hour before bed, and apparently she never left. They sleep military style, heads at opposite ends and sharing the blanket. Thomas curls his legs slightly, likely to avoid shoving his large feet into Rose’s face.

They’re both motionless. No terrors. No panicked whispers, no thrashing about. They’re completely out of it. Daud is almost jealous.

Daud sits on a chair and keeps watch.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CAN'T BELIEVE I NEVER THOUGHT SHE WAS A WEREWOLF BEFORE. Literally, the idea never occurred to me until I was writing this chapter. It makes so much more sense than Disassociative Identity Disorder. There's nothing in DH lore about lycanthropy, but that just means literally anything can be true about DH werewolves. It totally falls under reasonable suspension of belief. We're not gonna, like, confirm it either way, but it's my new headcanon.
> 
> This chapter is really ehhhhh but it's necessary to bridge to other plot points. So it's mostly bullshitting. (We kinda need a breather anyway, after the showdown last chapter) We will find out the whole Gardenia identity thing next chapter, it just didn't make sense for Grim Alex to give it up right away. It's not going to be another long-ass plot point. Like, half this story has been them running around trying to figure out who Delilah is banging. We'll be over than soon.
> 
>  
> 
> So apparently Vasco is actually white. But I've been imagining him as a brown dude for a while now so he's just gonna stay brown. We actually don't have, like, any brown people in the conspiracy if you don't count Daud, who's half but white-passing, and Reed, whose ethnicity is undetermined because I have no idea who his father is. And I imagine Zhukov as being darker, but that doesn't count because he doesn't really have skin left at this point. I also probably aged Vasco up a bit, but whatever. Vasco has turned out to be adorable. And now I'm having second thoughts about killing him off when the time comes.
> 
> So I literally fucking forgot about Paul at one point. I considered going back and editing him out of the previous section, but I needed him for arts and crafts and I don't trust Edgar with a welder. So there's no ulterior reason as to why Paul is missing in the second scene...I just forgot he was supposed to be there.
> 
> Trimble is basically this universe's version of Freud, wildly wrong about everything and in a few decades every poor soul studying psychology at the Academy will want to dig him up just to kill him again.
> 
> Rose's magic explanations sound more 'new age bullshit' than I intended, but that's probably because a lot of my witchy research comes from hippee Wiccan blogs. She's also a really shitty teacher and has a hard time explaining basic concepts because she grew up very witchy and divorced from society. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
> 
> I need to, like, actually get a job, so idk about the next chapter. I probably won't start it until I have employment. I need to buy treats for my bird, yo!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	17. Death in the Month of Songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Thomas are useless gays. Vasco and Lydia are the functional gays. Lizzy is the disaster gay. Daud is just a disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Reposted because I tried to edit a typo and the formatting kept getting weird. Also I'm drunk. And nobody told me that I forgot to name Chapter 15. It's fixed now.
> 
> Yo hey, I actually wrote out a shitty timeline of events and need to clear up a couple errors. I originally had Jessamine figuring out she was pregnant and being all "shit, gotta go' and peacing of of high society after Billie took the throne. After actually checking the dates, this isn't possible. Billie was crowned Empress in the Month of Darkness, 1828. Emily was born in freaking 1827. So in light of that, I'm moving a few things around. As far as the early timeline goes: Daud took Billie in in the Month of Hearths, 1825. Thomas sometime in the fall of 1826, not sure which month. Billie's Princess Diaries happened in the Month of Clans, 1826, and Euhorn Kaldwin died later that month. Jessamine 'died' a few weeks afterwards, in the Month of Songs. I think I need to move Thomas's birthday, but I think otherwise all the inconsistencies are cleared up. (Thomas's birthday literally doesn't matter, but it'll bug me if I don't have it mapped out. I'm the only person who cared about any of this, but anywho!) Forgive my horrible time-keeping. I'm gay and I can't do math. Also it really trips me up that their years end in the summer and not the winter.
> 
> Also, it's been a minute so in case you've forgotten, Eugene is the Dressmaker. I was so sick of  
> typing that title out. Also I keep calling Thomas Thanos? I did check, but if I misspell his name that's probably what I was trying to type. Yeah, idk. I haven't even seen Infinity War.
> 
> Warnings for the usual, mentions of cannibalism and necrophilia, which...now that that's typed out for me to see, wow, we're really going all in on this bitch, aren't we? Daud also takes arcane Adderall in this chapter, so that too.

When did this become his life?

It’s a simple problem with a simple fix. Get up, go piss. But Daud can’t move. Doing so would require disturbing the two kids heaped over him, and fuck if that was happening. Two kids currently violating his personal space, which Daud holds very dear. Two kids that aren’t even his responsibility. How had  _this_ happened?

Outside, the wind howls something fierce. Winter is starting to rear its ugly head. They’ll have to brave the chill tomorrow, but tonight Daud is glad for the layers of mortar and brick that separate them from the elements. This little basement shop wasn’t toasty by any means, but their exposed fingers and noses weren’t nipped by the cold. Huddled together like this, they were warm enough.

The boy shifts on top of him, one arm stretching up and nearly batting Daud in the face before flopping down. Thomas, he reminds himself. They found out his name is Thomas. He hasn’t spoken a word yet, but Billie was the one with the patience to sit the boy down and list off seemingly every name she’d ever heard of. When she guessed Thomas, he had lit up and clapped his hands, and stuck his tongue out when she tried calling him Tom. Billie had whirled around, dancing in place and grinning so hard he thought her face might break. “Did you hear that, Daud? His name is Thomas!”

Billie, who is currently digging her nose into his elbow crease and using his forearm as a pillow. It’s been an hour since he’s been able to feel his hand, but he finds himself not minding. Billie doesn’t usually initiate physical contact, and it’s unlike her to really cuddle up to him like this.

He’s just glad the shopowner let him crash on her spare cot. This Dunwall windchill killed, cut through your clothing and made your very bones shiver. Shelter was mandatory on nights like this. He’d crawled into dumpsters during these cold snaps before, but this was vastly preferable. He had only asked to sleep on her floor, but she had offered.

Daud thinks that, a year ago, there’s no way she would have let him spend the night in the back of her store. She would have been nervous the moment he stepped in, nose red from the wind and blowing on his stiff fingers, her glancing at his face and watching the clock for the exact minute she could kick him out and close up shop. Would have gone straight for that burly wife she had in back doing inventory, the wife who had given Thomas a sticky bun and patted his head when she thought Daud wasn’t looking. There’s still something about his face that people don’t like, but people seem to care less when he has two young and, frankly, adorable kids in tow.

Stupid. Anybody could pluck a kid off the street. And Daud certainly wasn’t trustworthy. But he wasn’t the type to take advantage of kindness.

The ladies only had one cot to spare, but that was fine. He and Billie would sleep apart in the summer, (at least they would until Billie would wake in the middle of the night and scootch closer to him, until the shirts of their backs brushed against each other and she’d fall back asleep, and Daud never said anything to her because she would never admit to having a nightmare) but since the temperatures have started dropping, they’ve just huddled together to better keep warm. And then Thomas happened. He went from completely disinterested in the two to needing constant attention and contact. Daud isn’t really a touchy guy either, but Thomas likes it. Needs it. So their sleeping arrangements might be cramped tonight, but it’s not far from normal.

Of course, Daud could have taken the floor, given them all some space. Thomas could just sleep with Billie. But the floor is cold. And Daud is careful with how much he pushes that. Billie is even more averse to physical affection than Daud is. They’ve reached a sort of balance with each other, an understanding of what the other is comfortable with, and she’s far more open to him touching her than anyone else. But Thomas is new, and he plows right through all her boundaries. It’s not his fault, of course-Daud is still trying to pinpoint Thomas’s age, but he’s too young to really know better. He doesn’t understand that Billie doesn’t exactly like thirty pounds of child pressed up against her all the time. He wants to tell Billie to get over herself, that Thomas is just being a kid, but the idea of telling her she  _needs_ to let someone touch her when she’s clearly not comfortable with it doesn’t sit well with him either.

They’re getting there, though. Billie certainly likes having Thomas around, despite the lack of personal space he allots. He’s a cute kid, he’ll admit, quiet; though the way he eats is killing Daud’s coin purse. Just when he’s finally figured out how to make his shitty income stretch to feed two people...another kid who needs clothing and medicine and other shit that can’t be shoplifted easily. He’s making it work, for now, but his grand plans of saving coin and renting an apartment are shot again. He’s getting too old to comfortably live like a hobo. And it’s not good for Billie-Thomas either. They deserve a real home. Daud will make it work. He can’t regret taking them in, even if they’re both little shits.

Billie’s actually easier to manage, though, with Thomas around. She’s always been a handful in personality. Not to mention Daud doubts she had much in the way of rules when living with her mother. He doesn’t really set many, but still she pushes back. Even against the ones she would have abided by without his input. (How hard was ‘wear your boots when you go outside’? She’s still run into the street barefoot just to defy him. It gives him a headache) He knows she’s testing him. Seeing how far she can push him, how much she can get away with. He tries not to be strict-her tantrums blow over like the wind, and she forgets her anger as quickly as it comes, but she can technically leave whenever she wants. If Daud annoys her too much. Daud isn’t her father and really has no right to her-no right to pretend he is.

But, weirdly, she listens better with Thomas around. Better yet, she’s taken to imposing the same rules on him, enforcing them herself. The fact that she does it in a way that manages to mock Daud doesn’t even ruin it. (“Lace your boots up, Daud gets the stinkface if you don’t!” A turn and a smile, waggling her fingers in his direction, while Daud just rolls his eyes at her) And Billie absolutely  _loves_ playing with him, even though he can’t talk back and sometimes tackles her into a full-body hug for no reason. He distracts her. Daud can actually focus on the book he’s reading or on whatever he’s roasting over a garbage fire for dinner without her trying to annoy him. Weird, that two kids would actually be easier than one.

He’s always felt bad anyway, that she was stuck with a crusty old man like him with no company her own age. She’s not so old that adult activities were all she needed to entertain her. She needs to  _play._ But Billie’s always brushed off his suggestions to go hang out with other streetkids, rejected the gifts of sliding puzzles and little army dolls he’d shoplift for her, always pretending like she was older than she was. She wasn’t a  _baby,_ she’d roll her eyes at him. Then she’d stomp her feet and whine about something he told her to do, and Daud would just have to bite his tongue.

Now, Billie mumbles something in her sleep and shifts her head, unpinning his blood vessels and sending uncomfortable prickling sensations through his arm. She settles into her new position, snug between him and the wall. He’s always slept between her and the door, ever since he was approached by some asshole offering to  _buy_ her off him. The guy had fucked off after Daud held him to the wall by his throat and said his piece, but it had still rattled him. He’s teaching her to defend herself, and she has a knife-a  _real_ knife, one of his combat knives, not the shitty little oyster-shucking knife she’d been using before-tied to her hip at all times. She knows how to use it. She’s capable. Acting as a barrier while she sleeps, it’s more to appeal to Daud’s own fucked-up paranoia, which will never be satisfied anyway. Keeping her,  _them_ close is for his own peace of mind. And his mind is very at peace like this, with her snoring into the crux of his arm and her ankles tangled up with his, Thomas strewn over his chest. They’re right here. Can’t forget it. He curls his arm around Billie and comes to rest his palm on her shoulder.

He still really has to pee. But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. He’s not waking these two.

Tomorrow he’ll have to thank the ladies for letting them stay. He’ll leave them the bottle of gin he confiscated from Billie’s grubby hands: he’s not going to drink it and fuck knows he’s not letting Billie. She also hasn’t had a writing lesson in a few days. She practices on her own, but he should still try to squeeze one in. Should he start including Thomas? He obviously can’t read. Not much of a surprise-most kids in their position never learned. Billie hadn’t until she was twelve. But Daud has no idea where to begin teaching someone who can’t talk back, can’t give much indication as to how much he even  _understands._ But he feels like he should try. And if Daud’s successful, then Thomas can write in place of speaking.

They’ll need to go to the market tomorrow too. Another round of looking for Thomas’s parents, asking him to point out anyone familiar or just waiting for someone to recognize him-though, they might not without a mask of dirt and mud caked into his hair. It’s been a few weeks, and Daud has basically no hope of finding them at this point. And if he’s being honest with himself, he’s sort of dreading actually handing Thomas over to them. How could he trust people who lost him like that in the first place? Who let him starve and never bathed him? Who-no, he doesn’t know the whole story, and he’s not going to go making one up. Only work himself into a rage, doing that.

He’d...rather keep Thomas. Even his shitty guardianship is still probably better than whatever he had before. But still. Thomas isn’t his. He has to try.

Daud’s also been putting off clothes shopping for too long; they’re going to need winter gear. His is fine, but Billie needs a heavier coat. Hers is too thin for winter and she’s outgrowing it anyway, her wrists jutting out a full three inches below the sleeve cuffs. Thomas needs a coat, period, and all three of them need new boots. His are actually starting to come apart at the sole; he  _never_ lets them get that bad. Billie is also going to need a bra at some point...Daud doesn’t even know where they sell those. Never mind. He is not dealing with that tomorrow.

He has some coin leftover from that shill job last week, and Billie will do some pickpocketing while they’re out no matter what he tells her. Should have enough. Bulky winter clothes were tricky to shoplift, preferable to obtain legally. He can’t get arrested. Not with these two depending on him for their next meal. And if they were connected to him, they’d be taken away as well. Daud’s not their legal guardian. He’d never see them again. Nope. He’ll pay for the clothes. Not worth the risk.

His life is full of this, shitty non-decisions stuck between a rock and a hard place. Worrying about kids who constantly give him grief and make him want to tear his hair out. Being broke all the time because he splurges any extra money he has on treats. Planning his days around what’s best for these two streetrats and putting his own needs and wants third. How the fuck had this become his life?

And when did he start to  _enjoy_ it?

 

* * *

 

Vasco doesn’t stay in Eugene’s quarters for long. He spends three nights there and then promptly moves his things into the mall’s local bookshop, saying he didn’t want to intrude. Intrude on what, Daud doesn’t know, as Eugene barely returns to his shop anymore. But he can see the way Eugene watches Vasco, the relief on his face when Vasco moves out. Eugene doesn’t hate the kid, of course. But with the way things have happened, there’s no way he could ever like him either.

Now, Vasco spends most of his time working with Jerome until Thomas gets done with lessons and Rose with work-then the three will disappear for hours. He fills notebooks full of chemical compounds and scientific theories and discusses potential treatment options for Hypatia. But he doesn’t set foot inside her prison.

So it surprises Daud when Vasco asks to go with him.

“You know she hasn’t gotten any better,” Daud grunts as he laces up his boots, his bed creaking something awful as he leans over.

Vasco glances furtively around the room. “That’s why I wanted you with me.”

“She’s in a cage, kid.” Daud stares at him. “She can’t hurt you.”

“I’d...feel better with you there, sir.”

Why? If Hypatia got free, Daud couldn’t protect him.

Daud sighs. Lets his boot clunk down on the floor, pushes himself up. “I can’t really tell you no. But if she gets too... _excited,_ I’m going to send you out.”

They meet Lizzy on the way down to the mall. She pinches Vasco under her arm and rubs his head, comments that his hair is starting to grow in, and shoots Daud a look. He declines to comment.

This has become a ritual of sorts. Twice a day, before breakfast and after dinner, Daud and Lizzy will visit Hypatia. See if there’s any changes to her behavior. Any sign she’s cracking.  _Something._

But nothing. Grim Alex has remained stoic. She mocks, threatens, spins stories purposely meant to stick in your mind and rattle you awake in the moments before you fall asleep. But she hasn’t answered a single one of their questions.

Well, not the ones they want her to answer, at least.

Lizzy tries to placate him, tells him that Alex has to crack sometime. Daud doesn’t say anything back. How does she know? Grim Alex is like nothing either of them have ever dealt with before.

(He never cracked. Six months and not a single chink in his resolve. And they were much worse to him than they are to Alex. It was never a battle to stay quiet. Maybe it was because he had no hope of surviving. He shut his mouth and took it. Let his body go flack and waited for the end. He never once felt his conviction flutter, felt the urge to confess to killing her. A crime he would never commit. There was nothing to hold out against)

If Alex wasn’t going to talk, then their one lead had ended at a brick wall. They’d wasted a month chasing a literal dead end. And that meant they’d have to find some other way to uncover Gardenia’s identity, torch Delilah’s coven and kill her so they could crown Thomas before he died of old age.

Why couldn’t, for once, this have worked out nicely? Why couldn’t Doctor Hypatia just be a batty student in way over her head? Why did there _always_ have to be a catch?

No use complaining about it, though Daud still does in his head. He’d give it two more days. If Alex has been here a week and shows no sign of wearing down, then he’d find a new thread. Delilah’s plans, he’s learning, are full of loose ends. He just has to locate another and start tugging.

The air is different when they step into the store, and Daud stops just to make sure Alex is still in her cage. She is. Kneeling on the floor very nicely.

Sitting and talking to Eugene.

“Daud!” Eugene scrambles to his feet, his face brighter than Daud’s ever seen. “Lizzy! You won’t believe it!”

“What the fuck are you doing in here alone?” Daud barks before he even has time to slide the door down. “There’s rules about that! Two people in the room with her, you need to take Jerome or Trimble with you!”

They actually instilled that rule because Trimble was being too weird with her. But it worked in reverse too, to protect everyone else.

But Eugene just shakes his head. “No, it’s not...it’s not  _her_ anymore. Alexandria is back!”

“I never really  _went_ anywhere, uncle.” Hypatia sits there, staring at them morosely, her hand at her shirt collar. “I feel I’ve been napping. Like all the days I’ve blacked out, but you said…”

Daud moves forward, slowly, never taking his eyes off her. Eugene returns to his position, kneeling on the floor two feet from the bars of the cage.

“You said I’ve been doing these...things,” Hypatia says, holding her hand in front of her face.

Eugene shakes his head. “No, dear, that wasn’t  _you._ There’s someone poisoning you, but we’ll get her out, love.”

“I thought she…” Hypatia shakes her head. “I didn’t think anyone else could hear her. Didn’t think she was real. I thought...I don’t know what I thought. The opposite of a conscience. She was that, given form, but I never thought she had that power over me.”

“It’s okay.” Lizzy shoves her hands into her pockets, her elbow linked with Vasco’s. “It’s the beast in all of us. You couldn’t control it. Be a hypocrite to hold it against you.”

“Perhaps. I don’t really subscribe to the notion of the id, but it might hold some weight if-” Her head snaps up. “Vasco? Vasco, is that you?”

Vasco raises his free hand and smiles with his lips pressed together. Hypatia covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh, dear, did I do that to you? I did, didn’t I? I hurt you, oh Void…this is why you lied to me all those times...when you broke both your legs, oh Vasco…”

“She said it was to keep me from escaping.” Vasco says it to the ground. “I think she was...mad, that I wouldn’t abandon you.”

Hypatia shakes her head. “How lucky I am, to have a friend like you. You’re so wonderful. I thought...with all the bruises, it was the guard who always flirted with you.”

“Yeah, no, she would have...she would have killed anyone I got involved with. I turned him down. I mean, she ended up killing him anyway…”

“I can’t believe I didn’t…” She leans forward, reaches out through the bars. “Step a little closer. Let me see what I’ve done to you.”

Vasco just stares at her.

“It’s alright.” Eugene turns to him with a smile. “It’s not  _her_ anymore.”

“I’d prefer to stand back here, if you don’t mind.”

“Vasco, you can  _trust_ me.” Hypatia stares at him with intense, tragic eyes. “I will never hurt you again, I promise.”

Vasco just clutches Lizzy’s arm a little tighter and smiles.

Lizzy shoots him an odd look, but she unhooks her thumb from her pocket and lets Vasco cling to her.

Daud folds his arms and watches Hypatia with narrowed eyes. “So how are you back now? You’ve been here for days and this other persona has been in charge the entire time.”

Hypatia shrugs as she settles back to the floor. “I don’t know why she’s released me. But I don’t even feel her there, not even the knocking at the back of my mind...maybe you’ve starved her to death.”

“We tried to feed her.” Daud stares her down. “She wouldn’t eat.”

“That’s not...I don’t think that’s the sustenance she needs…”

“Are you hungry?” Eugene jumps forward. “You must be, she’s rejected food for the last five days...I’ll go make you something.”

He scurries away while Lizzy scoffs. “Sucks to be her, huh? We’re not too interested in feeding cannibals. Even I have to draw the line there. Unless, you know, you’re stranded in the Serkonan desert and there’s nothing else to eat. That I can give a pass to.”

Vasco turns to her. “That’s oddly specific.”

“I’ve met some interesting characters.”

Daud thought she was just going on a hunger strike. He considered doing the same, when he was in prison, not in protest but just to speed things along. But Delilah’s witches were very good at starving him, pushed him out to the brink and then fed him just enough to keep him from falling off. They would have noticed if he refused one of those few, sparse meals. Delilah wouldn’t have let him actually starve to death. She wouldn’t let him die before she commanded it.

“I mean,” Lizzy breaks in. “You can’t really judge too much. Some people have been through a lot, and nobody’s perfect. I ran a gang, okay, we weren’t good people by any stretch of the imagination, but we had  _standards.”_ She waves her hand in front of her face. “You gotta draw a line somewhere. And that ‘Grim Alex’ chick ran over every single one of mine.”

“There’s had to be periods longer than five days where you’ve been in control.” Daud stares at Hypatia. “Do you think feeding gives her strength over you?”

Hypatia shakes her head. “No. No, it’s all the formula. The cure I developed-it didn’t work, obviously, but it...did something to me. That’s what feeds her.”

“How do you know? You weren’t aware of how strong she was until now.”

Hypatia opens her mouth to retort, but then Eugene breaks back in.

“Right from the kitchen.” He smiles at them, balancing a bowl in his palm with steam still rising from the top. “We’re having rice with breakfast today.”

“We have rice with every meal.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Rice and fish, fish and rice.”

“And potatoes,” Vasco points out.

“Only when we have enough salt to hide how rotten they are.”

“Well, everything’s sort of rotten now. With the blockade we can’t get produce or meat from anywhere else, and Dunwall doesn’t really produce much in the way of food besides whalemeat. Which makes it expensive, so we’re stuck with the things that have kept-”

“I know the reasons for it, kid, I’m just saying I’m sick of rice.”

Eugene approaches the cage, and Daud holds out his hand. “Wait. You,” he says, pointing to Hypatia. “Step back, turn around. Hands behind you head.”

“You’re really doing this?” Hypatia stares at him. “I’m not going to-he’s my uncle!”

“Daud. _”_ Eugene’s eyes plead with him, but Daud shakes his head.

“You haven’t seen how fast Alex can take over. Don’t take chances.”

“It’s alright, uncle.” Hypatia smiles at him, but casts a sour glance in Daud’s direction. “Daud’s just...trying to protect everyone. He thinks it’s still his job.”

Daud grits his teeth. “It’s not my job, it’s just not being an idiot.”

“Didn’t you kill the Empress?” She remarks, turning her back slightly to peer at him as Eugene sets the bowl on the ground. “I don’t really have words for what that makes you. Uncle, how are you friends with someone like him?”

Eugene presses a finger to his lip. “Alex, darling, that’s propaganda. Daud loved her like his own child; he wouldn’t have killed her.”

Hypatia sits back down and sets the bowl in her lap. “I don’t know how you can believe that,” she mumbles, picking up her fork and watching them through her eyelashes.

Daud feels like his teeth are going to crumble from the pressure he’s exerting on them. “He believes it because that’s the truth.”

“Why do you think you can lie to me? I was there.” Hypatia stares up at him. “Luca and I both, we were up on this walkway...we watched it happened. He choked her, uncle. Tried to strangle her and then stabbed her like a madman when she tried to wriggle out of his grasp. There was so much blood...it was so awful.”

Daud sees Eugene’s throat muscles move as he swallows. “I know they played games with your mind, lied to you. Maybe that’s what they told you, and over time you must have convinced yourself of those events. But that’s not what happened, sweetheart. We have proof.” He glances in Daud’s direction. “And I consider Daud one of my friends. I know him enough to know he wouldn’t have hurt that little girl.”

“She wasn’t a little girl,” Daud mumbles, then goes red. “Um...thanks, though.”

Hypatia just stares into her bowl of rice. “You’d believe him over your own niece…”

“It’s not  _like that,_ honey. You’re not well. People have been taking advantage of you.”

“It’s fine.” Daud waves his hand. “How Billie died isn’t what I came here to discuss. I know what really happened to her. And I need your help taking down the people responsible.”

“There’s not much I could tell you.” Hypatia presses her fork into the grains. “If all of what you say is true, then  _she_ is the one who knows everything.”

“She won’t tell us shit,” Lizzy snorts, rolling her eyes. “Come on, you worked for the Regent. You must know some names.”

Hypatia bites her lip, her eyes flicking to the corners of her cage. “Her inner circle...well, Luca, obviously. I was going over some things with him, the day Daud killed Empress Billie. He’s very devoted to the Regent, so you might want to start-”

“Abele is already dead,” Daud says through gritted teeth.

Eugene kneels down to put himself at eye level with Hypatia. “He died about a month ago, sweetie. I’m sorry if you didn’t hear.”

She blinks. Stares at Daud for a long moment, then goes back to picking at her food. “No, that...that does ring a bell now. Right. Daud killed him too, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Daud folds his arms. “He conspired to have the Empress assassinated, the heir abducted, and was keeping a relative of one of our allies captive. That’s not even mentioning his involvement in your predicament. He had-”

“Predicament?” Hypatia raises one eyebrow.

“He was heavily involved. Trust me. He  _deserved_ it.”

Hypatia says nothing. She just continues to move her fork around, occasionally bringing it to her mouth. Watching them.

“So Abele’s off,” Lizzy breaks the silence at last. “We took out Arnold Timsh and Bundry Rothwild too. Had a cool little board set up with pictures, but Jerome accidentally set it on fire. Who else belongs on our murder list?”

“We’re looking for someone in particular,” Daud says. “A very powerful witch. One of the Ashworth siblings-the codename they go by is ‘Gardenia’. Do you know anything about that?”

“Well, Reginald is living in Bastillian now, so he’s been away from Dunwall since this all began. I don’t know if that’s any help…”

Lizzy nods appreciatively, then turns to Daud. “Right, so we’ve narrowed it down to three fuckers.”

“Five minus one is four, Lizzy. I thought I was done teaching basic arithmetic ten years ago.”

“Josiah Ashworth is gay as fuck, so it ain’t him. Makes three. I know my numbers. Anyway, it’s something.”

Not a something Thomas would be happy acting on. He won’t permit Daud to make a move until they’ve whittled it down to one target. Daud can’t go against his Emperor’s orders-not like that.

The fact that Reginald isn’t physically in Dunwall doesn’t actually help, now that Daud thinks about it. Delilah has those statues-how far can she project herself to them? From Dunwall Tower to the Legal District, at least, but could she communicate with an agent on another island?

Would it make  _sense_ to have Gardenia operate in Serkonos? Daud doesn’t know how far the coven reaches. How far their  _power_ reaches. And Delilah very well might have sent Gardenia away for their own safety-if she has a shred of understanding of what’s going on, she would want them hidden.

“We’ll go over it more later,” Daud says, rubbing his face. “Who were the other three again?”

“Leo, Rosalind, and Breanna.”

“I thought you said there was only one girl?”

“Rosalind’s a guy.” Lizzy shrugs. “Fuck if I know what they were smoking. He’s twins with Breanna, so my best guess is they got some lady vibes and had their hearts set on having two girls. I would too, after three fucking boys.”

“They don’t pronounce it like that, though,” Vasco supplies helpfully. “It’s more like  _‘Ross-_ alind.”

“That...sounds like a pasta dish Ricardo would make. And now I’m hungry.”

“So did you deal with any of those three?” Daud butts back in, staring Hypatia down. “Anything sound familiar?”

Hypatia brings her fork with a few grains of rice to her lips and mouths it, then places it back down in her bowl. “I think...Ashworth, something about a party, invitations written with silver ink and a note to buy flowers. In the Month of Hearths?” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. It’s all...foggy.”

“A party.” Eugene turns to them with hopeful eyes. “So Ashworth is throwing some sort of party next month, or...well, could be in a few days, but if we look-”

“She’s talking about the Boyle party,” Daud says louder than intended, pressing his lips together to keep his exasperation in check. “The Masquerade. That’s on the thirteenth.  _Trust me,_ it’s an all-month affair. Nobody with the slightest shred of social awareness is going to be planning a party then.”

“But would Ashworth  _be_ there?” Lizzy asks Hypatia, then turns to Daud. “If they’re important to the Regent, then they might have gotten an invite!”

Daud huffs. “If Ashworth is really that important to Delilah, she wouldn’t  _let_ them go to the masquerade. Not with people like us running loose in the city.” In later years, when Daud’s nerves have calmed a bit, he might be able to let Thomas go to parties and mingle and dance without seeing a concealed blade in every sleeve and poison in every cup of wine. But this year? Thomas is staying squirreled away in here, safe as houses, until Daud has surgically removed every threat from the fabric of Dunwall high society.

If Delilah is even remotely connected to reality at this point, she should be aware of the danger that her inner circle is in. And if she truly loves Gardenia, in the way she never did Billie, she’d be pulling out all the stops to keep them safe.

“We-we could just ask Lydia who’s on the list!” Eugene says brightly. “If we know Gardenia was invited-”

“We can what? We can’t be sure and the name is only half the puzzle anyway. We still don’t know  _where_ they are.”

“We will though! For one night.”

“We could go to the Masquerade!” Vasco says, smiling wider than Daud’s seen him in the few days he’s known the kid. “Lydia can get us in, and I could point out anyone who looks familiar!”

“It’s a masquerade, kid. Everyone wears masks.” Lizzy pats his head affectionately.

Vasco’s shoulders slump. “Oh, we...we call that something else, back in Serkonos. I didn’t realize.” He straightens back up. “But there’s got to be ways to figure out who’s who. And I may recognize people’s voices.”

“You’re not going to a party, Vasco.” Daud stares him down. “You’re supposed to be kidnapped and being held against your will.”

“So? Rose is going, and she’s supposed to be  _dead.”_

Daud sighs and rubs the inner corners of his eyes. “I’m tempted not to let anyone go to this damn party.”

“Well, what if we want to go to the party?” Lizzy puts her hands on her hips. “What are you gonna do,  _ground_ us?”

“I don’t even know what that is, and you don’t like parties.”

“Says who?!” Lizzy fluffs her wisp of hair and flips it obnoxiously over her shoulder. “Maybe I want to wear a pretty dress and jewels for a night, make me feel like an Empress.”

“We’re not going to the Masquerade,” Daud deadpans. Lizzy pouts.

“You never take me anywhere nice.”

“Do you know if the Regent is attending, Alex?” Eugene scoots closer to the cage. “Even if she’s wearing a mask, perhaps we-”

“Get  _away_ from her,” Daud barks, waving his hand. Eugene just stares at him with those big hazel eyes.

“Why? Daud, it’s-”

“Because that’s  _not_ your niece!”

Hypatia tears her eyes from Eugene then, her fingers tightening around the bar she’s begun gripping onto. They both stare at Daud, and Eugene’s mouth moves without sound.

“I don’t…” Hypatia’s voice quivers dramatically, after a beat. “Why are you being so cruel to me?”

Daud rolls his eyes. “Please. Don’t insult my intelligence. I’m not fooled, so drop the act.”

“How are you friends with such a man?” Hypatia’s head whips sideways, her eyes filling with water. “And you’re willing to side with him over me? Your own flesh and blood? An Empress-killer, uncle!”

“I trust Daud-”

“You trust a man whose mouth is stained red with lies and blood!”

Eugene pushes himself up on his heels and begins to back away. “I told you, Alex,” he says slowly. “You’re not yourself, and he didn’t-”

“He killed her!” Her eyes grow wide, and she lurches forward to grab the bars with both hands. “He’s a murderer! He killed her,  _he killed her!”_

All of a sudden, Grim Alex picks up her ignored bowl of rice and launches it straight at Daud’s head. It’s easy enough, with Daud’s supernatural reflexes, to dodge, but he still grimaces as he hears it shatter against the wall.

Great. Now they were down a bowl.

“How  _dare_ you?” Alex snarls, pushing her face through the bars. “Your pretty niece is suffering, wasting away in here, and you side with this bastard killer?  _Pathetic!”_

Eugene holds a hand to his heart. “But...Alex, she-”

“It was never her, sir.” Vasco’s lips are tightly pressed together, staring at the cage intently. “She mimics Hypatia well. I knew it when she started calling Daud a killer. Hypatia thinks she spent the day of the Empress’s murder in her room with a migraine.”

It was her eyes that had tipped Daud off. When he had first met her, Hypatia’s eyes would only focus for a moment. They slid over him, slowly, like a smoked bee stumbling sleepily outside its hive.

Now, her eyes move like a jaguar tracking its prey. Darting around wildly, quickly. Focusing abnormally. Now, her eyes are trained on him as she rattles the bars, hoisting her feet up and sticking the toes of her slippers through the slots.

“When I get out of here,” she says, her voice dripping with venom. “I will kill you last.”

“Terrifying.” Daud folds his arms. “You’re not getting out.”

She slams her elbow against the bars and yelps. “I will! And I will tie you down, chain your legs to the floor just like my dear Vasco, cut off your hand and make you watch!”

“His hand?” Eugene turns to him with a perturbed expression. “What does that have to do with…”

“We’ll play a game, you and I.” Alex’s voice goes husky, and she throws her head back and laughs. “Guessing how long they’ll last. How long will it take my sweet Vasco to bleed out after I’ve removed his limbs? How many organs can I remove from my dear uncle’s stomach before he expires? And you, little whaler-” She points at Lizzy. “I told you I’d cut your legs off! I’ll bind them, keep them from bleeding so I can watch you crawl around like the pathetic worm you are!”

Daud sighs. “I think this visit is over.”

“Oh, but we’re just getting started!” She swings herself around, still attached to the side of the cage like a Pandyssian monkey. “You know what would be fun? If I made  _you_ choose how they die. We’re going to have such fun together, Daud. We’ll take everyone apart and roll in the mess!” She cackles, her face twitching. “I’ll save  _her_ for the finale, so you can watch her wriggle in pain-no! I’ll kill your boy last! So we can take our time, make him  _scream!”_

“I don’t think...don’t think Delilah would really be happy if you, you know, killed him.” Lizzy is actually leaning away from Alex. “Her plan kinda revolves around Thomas being alive and shit.”

“I don’t care what my mistress wants!” Alex bursts out. “I told her, she can find some other blond boy to use! Parliament won’t care! They just want to avoid a war! Use another child, pretend it’s the true heir! This one’s mine! I  _will_ taste royal flesh!”

“Come on. We’re done here.” Daud grabs Eugene by the elbow.

“You can’t keep me in here forever!” They hear Alex pull on the bars, screeching in frustration. “I  _will_ get out! And you will see that my mistress has never been the one people should fear! It’s me!  _It’s always been me!”_

They retreat to Eugene’s quarters to regroup. Vasco sits on a table with his ankles linked together and his hands firmly in his lap. Eugene sits and puts his head in his hands.

“I’m a fool,” he moans. “An utter fool.”

Lizzy clicks her tongue. “Nah, just a sentimental one. There’s a difference.”

“Lizzy,” Daud admonishes, then turns back to Eugene. “No. I get it. You want your niece back. You’ll see her in anything.”

He thinks of the Talisman. Billie’s dead voice, a piece of her ripped away from her humanity, divorced from all the little things that made her up. Existing on the tips of his fingers and resting in his palm, but never truly in his grasp.

“Has she done this before?” Daud asks Vasco, even though he already knows the answer.

Vasco doesn’t take his eyes off the floor, but he nods. “Most often with the guards and the like. They’d come to investigate if they...you know, if they heard me screaming. She’d pretend to be Hypatia, get them to go away...but she’s done it to get my guard down. She likes playing mind games. Calls it ‘cat and mouse’.”

Ugh.

“But one thing she said got me thinking…” Vasco presses his fingers together and rests them against his lips as he thinks. “I don’t doubt she’s really starving.”

“You’d think she would be, but she didn’t even eat when we put food in her hands.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “That’s what tipped  _me_ off that something wasn’t right. I get hangry when I don’t eat for five hours, much less five days.”

“Yes, and she’s...never been in this form, not for this long.”

Daud watches him carefully. “I got the impression that Alex was usually the one in charge.”

Vasco starts nodding fervently. “Yes, but she wasn’t...she was more of a shotgun side driver, if you get my metaphor. She could guide Hypatia’s mind, even though Hypatia was technically the one in control. She’s never exerted full control over Hypatia’s body like this for more than a day or so, maybe two.”

Lizzy snorts. “What, and you think Grim Alex needs to eat more or something?”

“That’s exactly what I’m getting at. I think assuming control requires more energy than we think. She’s remaining in control because she doesn’t want us to get to Hypatia, that much is obvious, but it’s wearing on her.”

“Then why is she refusing food?” Daud holds his hand out. “That doesn’t make sense-she should want to eat as much as we push at her.”

Vasco taps at his chin. “I think she was telling the truth when she said that wasn’t the type of food she needed.”

“Oh, gross.” Lizzy wrinkles her nose. “I am not feeding her people!”

“I don’t think  _human_ meat is really required, but...I do think she needs meat. The protein, likely, that’s probably what she needs to fuel her. Maybe we should give her some fish?”

Daud shakes his head. “Why are we trying to  _make_ her eat? What I’m hearing is that she’ll get weaker if we don’t give in to her.”

“So you’re willing to starve my niece?” Eugene puts his hands down, staring at Daud with a curled lip.

“Not like that. Just until Grim Alex can’t keep control of her body any longer.”

“Don’t get mad at Daud, bro.” Lizzy bumps Eugene with her knee. “He doesn’t like this any more than you do.”

No, he really doesn’t like this. He doesn’t want to deal with Hypatia either. Hypatia doesn’t know shit. No matter which way he looks at it, he’s back to square one.

“I know, I know.” Eugene buries his face in his hands again. “I just…” He blows out, long and slow.

“I understand,” Daud says, though the words are sour on his tongue. “We should get going to breakfast. Eugene, maybe you should take a break from visiting Alex for a bit, I-”

“Daud, I need to ask you something,” Eugene says as Vasco is hopping down from his perch, Lizzy already a few steps towards the door. “And I need to you be truthful.”

“What?”

He doesn’t look up from the floor. “Did you really kill that little girl?”

Daud grits his teeth. “She  _wasn’t a little girl,”_ he spits.

“Did you kill  _the Empress,_ then? Tell me truthfully, did you kill Billie?”

He just breathes for a moment. The anger is there, red hot and piping, exiting in steam through his nose.

But he’s...tired. He’s too tired to act as anger’s puppet, to act on the fury. He can’t hold up against the barrage. The thought of combating these accusations, replaying the events and arguing his side, every time it comes up for the rest of his life makes him just want to lay down and die right where he is.

He ends up not having to, as Lizzy charges forward, pushes past Daud and slaps Eugene smartly across the face.

“Daud didn’t fucking kill her!” she screams, striking him again. “Quit asking him!”

“I haven’t asked before-” Eugene raises his hand to stop her third blow, but Daud reaches forward and catches Lizzy’s fist in his hand.

“That’s enough,” he says to her, then turns back to Eugene. “If that’s really what you think of me-”

“That’s not what I...my niece remembers a series of false events!” he motions. “Daud, you must know how it looks! Standing over her corpse, covered in her blood! I’m not even implying you did it while mentally sound, I’m saying you might have convinced yourself-”

“That woman in there is not your niece.”

“But why would she insist you killed her, then?” he shoots back. “She has nothing to gain from that!”

“Maybe making us fight like geese?” Lizzy shoves Eugene in the chest before Daud can grab her. “Which is working!”

“I didn’t start the fight, you-”

“Why the fuck would Daud kill her?! It hurt him more than anyone else! He got-”

_“Enough!”_ Daud barely raises his voice, but the two go silent instantly. He raises his finger, letting it nod in the air once, twice before he can look Eugene in the eye and speak. “I have defended myself time and time again, and I’m not doing it anymore. I watched Billie die. They made me  _watch.”_

“I didn’t mean-”

“I was covered in her blood because I tried to hold her together with my bare hands.” Daud’s lip curls. “I  _tried_ to hold onto her. I tried to keep her blood inside her. I did my best and it wasn’t good enough. I have spent every goddamn day and night since going over it in my mind, trying to find something I did wrong, some way that I could have changed what happened. And I would give  _anything_ to have it been me growing cold on the floor instead of her.”

“Daud, I-”

“You  _knew_ I would have done anything for her, you’ve told me how  _special and wonderful_ our relationship was.” He lets his arm swing back down to his side. “And if you can think that and still think I would have put a sword through her, then I guess that says a lot about the person I’ve become.” He stares. Eugene doesn’t look back. “Think whatever you want. If you want to think I’m a monster, then go ahead. I clearly have done nothing to deserve anything less.”

He grabs Lizzy by the arm and pulls her away, and she almost stumbles into him in surprise. Vasco is still standing by his table, his hands at his temples and his eyes staring in horror. It reminds him of how Thomas would look when he was young, when Daud and Billie would fight. Hands over his ears, bent over and crying into the floor, begging them not to hurt each other and demanding they say their sorries when they were done.

“Daud, wait. I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t be.” He reaches out and tugs on Vasco’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go to breakfast.”

 

* * *

 

Daud grabs his cup before it tumbles over the edge. Grumbles, puts it back to his lips as Thomas tries to maneuver his plate into the space and whispers an apology. Daud moves Lizzy’s mug aside, trying to reduce her sprawl and ignoring her glare. Vasco’s plate is halfway off the table, and Daud can only wonder how it hasn’t tipped into his lap already. Rose makes to sit down and her belly moves the entire table half an inch forward. She makes a face and scoots her chair back.

This table was not meant for six people. With the inclusion of Vasco, their breakfasts and lunches have become rather cramped affairs. Rose has resumed work now and eats earlier than they do, but she gets frequent breaks and usually nurses a cup of tea at the table with the rest of them. Lizzy apparently would rather eat on a surface the size of a postage stamp than go sit at the main table with Edgar, so she remains and Daud still doesn’t ask questions.

“So how was she?” Lydia asks brightly, as she’s done every morning. Her stitches have been removed and the cuts on her cheek are healing nicely-but they will scar. Horribly so.

Lydia doesn’t seem to care too much, however. Maybe it’s because she never seemed to fuss over her appearance in general. Or maybe because she sees people like Daud and realizes that disfigurement didn’t necessarily mean the death of your career and social life, even among the upper class.

Daud shakes his head and doesn’t say anything. Lizzy elbows him in the ribs.

“Same shit, different day. Daud’s just getting his panties in a knot over something Eugene said.”

Normally, Daud might be tempted to say something about projecting. But he’s just too tired now. Not even the residual anger he’s so used to feeling constantly-just exhaustion.

If anything, he’s only mad about him calling her a little girl. Billie was twenty-three goddamn years old. And she will always be that age. She will never grow older, never have children, never see her hair go grey. Never fall in love with someone who deserved her. Billie had died young, yes. But she was a grown woman. She had a job and did it well, handled it with more grace and maturity even at a young age than most nobles displayed throughout their entire lives. She wasn’t the Child Empress anymore, and it bothers him that that’s what she’s been reduced to.

“Oh? Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, Daud. The man’s as gentle as a lamb.”

“We might have a breakthrough in the Gardenia case, however,” Vasco says before shoving a forkful of rice into his mouth. He politely chews and swallows before continuing. “They might be attending the Boyle Masquerade. I’m, um, told that you could verify that? Do you work for them or something?”

Lydia blinks. “Vasco, you do know who I am, right? I’m Lydia  _Boyle.”_

“Oh.” Then Vasco goes completely red. “I forgot. Daud and Lizzy told me that. You don’t...act like a noble.”

Lydia’s mouth parts slightly, but Rose waves her hand. “No, not like that. He just means you’re actually nice to us.”

“Half this table is technically nobility,” Lizzy points out. “But you wouldn’t know because we’re all cool cats here and we don’t give a shit.”

Daud gives her a funny look. “I’m not a nobleman.”

“Sure you are. The Empress gave you a title, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but-” Then he pauses, presses him lips together. “That doesn’t count.”

Thomas raises his eyebrow. “No, Daud, that’s how it works. You’re a Lord. You’ve  _been_ one for over ten years.”

“Well, I’m not one right now.”

“You will be once I give your title back.”

Lizzy raises her hands. “Okay, shut up. So Daud was born in a dumpster, but he’s spent half his life in a palace so close enough. I’m just saying that none of you act all stuck up like you’d expect.”

He has not, in fact, spent half his life at Dunwall Tower. Not even a third of it. Daud grumbles as he takes another sip of coffee. “Guess my blue collar is showing.”

“Better a blue collar than a silver spoon up your ass,” Rose says nonchalantly, causing Lydia to nearly choke on her bread. “But honestly, I’ve had to pick up after a lot of nobles, and Thomas is by far the tidiest. I’ve never seen a nobleman pick up his own socks before.”

“That’s probably because Daud made me clean my own room until I was fourteen. It’s ingrained in me.” Thomas shoots him a sour look. “He _never_ made Billie.”

“She never had a room to clean.”

“Until she did.”

“You think I could tell the Empress of the Isles to clean her room?” He did. “I  _still_ clean my own room, so quit your whining.”

You’d think Daud made him get on his hands and knees and scrub the floor with lye. The maids did the major cleaning-the scrubbing and washing and whatnot. All he did was make Thomas pick up after himself, keep his things tidy if not organized, and make his own bed every morning. He made Billie do the same, though her bed always remained a mess because he lost that fight. He had to pick his battles with that girl. Sometimes he didn’t pick well.

“Our mother made Esma and I tidy up our toys, but Waverly never had to.” Lydia taps her lip. “That explains a lot about her behavior, actually. But anywho. How do you know Gardenia will be at our Masquerade?”

“We don’t,” Daud says. “Alex mentioned something about going herself.”

“Well, she wasn’t invited, but plenty of people bring plus ones.”

“I know you haven’t been home in a while, but can you remember any Ashworths on your guest list?”

“Ashworth?” Rose says in a high pitch. “Who’s...Ashworth?”

“That’s Gardenia,” Thomas tells her. “We have a last name, but no first.”

“...Oh.”

“I don’t recall,” Lydia says, nose wrinkling in concentration. “If I’d been able to make the meeting with my sisters, I would have checked.”

“Can’t you just go home whenever you want?” Lizzy asks. Lydia shakes her head.

“No, no, the city is far too dangerous for me to travel between districts. Or within them, apparently.”

“One of us could escort you,” Daud says.

“That’s a kind offer, but it wouldn’t work. My sisters, um, think I’ve joined a convent.”

“Wait.” Lizzy leans forward. “Those are real?”

“...Yes?”

“Fuck, I always thought my ma’s threats were hollow. She always said she was gonna ship me off to one of those. Put me in a chastity belt and spend all my days meditating.”

“I don’t...think they quite go that far, but yes, I would not be able to stand it. My mother sent me there one summer.” She shudders. “It was so quiet. No speaking outside of arranged meetings and you were only allowed to read religious text. I told my mother I’d open my wrists if she even sent me back.” She folds her hands on the table. “So I suppose it proves how little my sisters know me. Originally, they had an armed escort sent to the convent when we were supposed to meet. I’d have Galia sneak me in and meet me again when I was dropped off. After Rose and I were attacked, I had Galia give the guards a letter, telling them I’d fallen ill. She had to dress up as one of the other girls to hand it off. They’d be suspicious if I just showed up at the manor with an armed guard.”

“So the short answer is that you’re not going to be back until the night of the ball.”

“Precisely, yes.”

Daud huffs in annoyance. Lydia leans forward.

“If you think Gardenia will be there, I will gladly get you in. I can tell the doormen to expect you, or sneak you in some other way if you’d like. Everyone will be wearing masks, but there’s always little guessing games going on.”

Vasco raises his hand. “If we go to this party, I may recognize the voices of people who have met with Hypatia. It’s not perfect, but it may help.”

“Wait. You’re going?” Thomas asks then, as Vasco nods proudly, turns to face Daud. He opens his mouth, and Daud answers before Thomas can get the words out.

“No.”

“But they’re both going!” Thomas says, motioning to the other teenagers at the table, who both look instantly embarrassed.

“No.”

“But-”

“No. Thomas, you’re not going.”

“Eh, why not?” Lizzy examines a piece of fried fish before popping it into her mouth. “Gotta get in that practice for all the fancy rich people parties you’ll be going to.”

“Thomas has attended plenty of formal events, and the ruling monarch isn’t allowed to attend the Masquerade anyway.” He turns back to Thomas. “It’s too dangerous.”

“But I’ll be wearing a mask! Nobody will know it’s me!” He motions to Rose and Vasco again, who both sink lower in their seats. “They’re supposed to be in hiding too. So what, a mask will hide them fine, but not me?”

Daud doesn’t really like them going either. He’ll avoid bringing Vasco along if he can. He’s still trying to think up excuses to keep Rose home. Maybe he’ll have Trimble make up some bullshit medical reason why she shouldn’t attend.

They’re children, whether they like it or not. And he’ll protect them. It’s just too big of a risk right now,  _especially_ if Gardenia is there.

_‘If_ we end up going to this party, Lizzy and I will be working.” Daud sips his coffee. “We will be too busy to protect you.”

“But I won’t  _need_ protecting if I wear-”

“The answer is  _no,_ Thomas. You are going to this party over my dead body.”

Thomas looks to the table and sulks. Lizzy makes a scoffing noise.

“Wait, so back up a second. Why the fuck can’t the Emperor go to this thing? I thought being, you know, the supreme ruler of everything would automatically grant you an invite to every party ever.”

“Oh, he’s invited,” Lydia says carefully. “Well, not this year, obviously, my sisters think he’s dead, but we invited the Empress every year.”

“Decorum prevented her from attending,” Daud tells Lizzy. “It’s one of those unwritten rules.”

Lizzy sticks out her bottom lip. “That’s fucking bullshit, man.”

“The Empress thought so too.”

Lydia leans forward and smiles coyly in Daud’s direction. “I suppose that’s why you two snuck in last year?”

Daud glares at her.

“What?” Thomas tilts his head. “You and Billie crashed the Masquerade?”

“They did. And they looked smashing.”

“How did you find out?” Daud asks. He’s trying to think of ways they may have slipped up-they had piloted their own boat there, one without the Crown’s sigil plastered over the side, and hadn’t removed their masks until they were halfway back to Dunwall Tower. They spoke off-pitch and faked a lilt to their words around others, as Daud’s voice was easily recognizable and Billie’s accent was a weird mesh of urban Dunwall and Empiric aristocrat and was quite distinctive to the Empress. Billie was quite obviously wearing a wig, but many noblewomen did so for fashion. Perhaps there was a point where her sleeve slipped up a little too far, exposed some of the skin between the cuff and the glove...no, while most nobles were indeed lighter than her, she certainly wasn’t the only one with that skin color. That alone shouldn’t have given it away.

He’d been careful. He’d planned it considerably, so Billie could go and be safe, both from physical dangers and court intrigue. And it pisses him off that he’d failed and he hadn’t even known it until a year later.

Lydia stirs her tea, a mischievous smile on her face. “Oh, Esma was the one who figured it out,” she remarks. “The Empress had a very, well, _unique_ way of shaking hands. I’m not sure how to explain it, Vasco, may I borrow your hand?”

She quickly wipes her fingers on her napkin before taking Vasco’s hand in hers. “It was very slight, but once Esma pointed it out to me, I noticed she did indeed shake like this every time. She would tilt your hand like so, over once-” She turns her knuckles up, forcing Vasco to expose the underside of his wrist. “And would give it a bump, make them flex their wrist jut ever so slightly. Then she would turn it back down and actually shake. It was quite odd. I’ve never seen anyone shake hands like it.”

Daud covers his mouth as he coughs. “The reason she did that was to check for knives in the other person’s sleeve. I taught her that.”

Lydia releases Vasco’s hand. “That’s...rather paranoid. How often did you come across knives sewn into people’s sleeves?”

“She found five doing exactly that.” Many were coated in poison. They weren’t meant for stabbing her-a quick prick when they got close, during the handshake itself perhaps, skin broken and she’d be dead in a minute. “Maybe she found others when I wasn’t attending her. I’ve personally removed dozens of weapons from people who thought they were being sneaky.”

“...Oh. Well, I apologize if it seems I was making light of it.” She looks uncomfortable for a moment, but recovers. “Esma was greeting the guests, and she sidled up to me at the wine table and giggled that the Empress was here. Once she pointed you out, it was easy enough to see you two.”

“I thought we blended in.”

“If Esma hadn’t mentioned it, I never would have guessed it was her. You, it was entirely obvious you were her bodyguard and not her date. But I wouldn’t have imagined the  _Empress_ dumping an entire glass of Tyvian red down Treavor Pendleton’s backside.”

“You clearly didn’t know her that well.” Which one was Treavor again?

Lydia shrugs. “Apparently not. But I do know that she could never dance. Your shoes must have been filled with blood by the end of the night.” She takes a bite of her bread and chews thoughtfully, swallows before continuing. “We never mentioned it to anyone, Daud. Not even Waverly. We know what a scandal it would be-we were just happy for her, that she was able to slip away and have some fun. She always seemed like such a profoundly unhappy person.”

“Billie was plenty happy,” Thomas retorts. “She acted cold because that’s what you all expected of her.”

Happy? Billie was a lot of things, sure. Daud couldn’t say she was cold. Even in her sternest moments, Billie was full of fire. Full of life. Anger and compassion. A burning desire to change things, to make things right. Fury at those who stood in her way.  _Rage._

He doesn’t know if she was happy. And it bothers Daud immensely that he’s never wondered before.

“Well,” Thomas says, pressing rice grains through the tins of his fork. “If you took Billie, it’s only fair if you let me go.”

“We can watch his back!” Vasco says brightly, only to wince as Rose delivers a quick punch to his kidney. “Ow!”

“We’re not both going if Thomas has to stay home,” she hisses.

Thomas rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to babysit me.”

“It’s not about that, it’s about not being a cockwaffle.” She pushes herself to her feet. “Anyway, I got shit to do. Starting with dishes. Lay ‘em on me.”

“Well, let me know if you decide to attend.” Lydia hands her plate over with grace. “I can tell you where all the secret rooms are, and help you during the ball if you need it. I’ll be the one in black.” She winks.

Thomas leans forward. “You could give me an invitation too, and then Daud can’t stop me from going.”

“I think he can.”

“He’s not the boss of me.”

“I’m going to agree with Daud this time, Thomas,” Lydia says with a gentle smile on her face. “This is a...tumultuous year. It will likely be dangerous, and the guestlist isn’t even half what it’s been previously. You can always come crash it next year.”

“If we’re all even alive by then,” Thomas grumbles. Daud sighs exasperatedly.

“If I hear one more damn thing about this party,  _no one_ is going. Including Lydia.”

“Morning everyone.” Galia strides over to their table, hiding her yawn behind her hand.

“What are you doing up?” Lydia cocks her head. “You never attend breakfast.”

“Don’t remind me.” She turns back to the rest of the group. “I met with one of my contacts a few hours ago, got stuck hiding from Watch and had to, uh...holy shit, you’re getting fat.”

Rose pauses in her dish-gathering to stare at Galia blankly.

“You know,” Daud pipes up. “I used to tell Thomas that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

“You’ve literally never said that to me.”

“I mean…” Galia shakes her head. “Fuck, you know what I mean.”

“No, I feel the same way. I haven’t seen my feet in days.” She sticks out her leg and waggles her foot. “My brother had to help me put my shoes on this morning because for all I know they don’t exist anymore.”

“They do, trust me. You kicked me in the face last night.”

“You just won’t get over that, will you?”

“So, like…” Galia tilts her head. “Are you sure there’s only one in there?”

Rose glowers at her belly. “There  _better_ be.”

Lydia puts her teacup down with a smile. “You’re a twin, sweetie. That means you’re likely to have more than one. That’s what Sokolov said when Esma was pregnant, though thankfully Maria was a singleton.”

“Fraternal twins carry an increased chance of multiples,” Vasco says. “You and Esma are identical twins, correct?”

Lydia blinks. “What?”

“I’m not having twins,” Rose huffs. “I already raised my brother. One more is about all I can stand.”

Lizzy snorts into her coffee. “Anybody want a free baby? Hey, you can offload your spare with Thomas, he needs one. And Daud loves babies.”

“No,” he mutters. “I’m just really good at finding them in the trash.”

That causes Lizzy to choke a bit, and Thomas looks down at the ground. Rose lifts up the stack of dirty dishes and balances them on her belly as she turns to Galia. “Don’t you have, like, work to do or something?”

Galia rolls her eyes in an exaggerated fashion as Rose walks away.

“Don’t be mean to her, Fleet,” Thomas says. “The whole baby thing has her stressed out. She gets weird about it.”

“Maybe she should have considered that before opening her legs,” Galia mutters.

Daud opens his mouth to retort, but Galia dumps something brown and rectangular into his lap, and Daud has to move to catch it before it flattens his junk.

“Anyway, I just walked over here to give you that.” Galia points. “The files we talked about?”

“What files?” Thomas’s eyes flick down to the binder with suspicion.

Galia turns with her mouth already open, and Daud is quick to silence her.

_“Nothing,”_ he says, pulling it off his lap and shoving it under his ass.

“Clearly it’s not.”

“I’ve been up all night,” Galia announces with a fake smile. “I’m going to bed. Don’t bother me.”

“What were you guys talking about?” Thomas asks after Galia’s walked away.

Daud just shakes his head. “Nothing you need to concern yourself over.”

“Everything is my concern, Daud. That’s literally my job title.”

“Not your job yet, Tommy-boy.” Lizzy takes another bite of bread and chews obnoxiously. “Just enjoy the last few weeks you have of fucking off and having no responsibilities.”

“It’s Spymaster stuff,” Daud tells him. Thomas gives him a pointed look.

“I haven’t made you my Spymaster.”

Daud presses his lips together. Thomas quickly turns red and looks down. “I mean, I don’t really have anyone in mind. I’d have you, but you’ll be my Protector…”

“Why not both?” Lydia leans forward, chin resting on her linked fingers. “There’s no law against that, is there?”

Lizzy snaps her fingers. “Fuck yeah, and that’s a surefire way to make sure the Spymaster doesn’t murder you like the last one!”

Vasco taps his fingernails against the table, brow creased with worry. “I don’t know, isn’t that sort of defeating the point of position? The Spymaster works in secrecy to provide a sort of check and balance, so to speak, so a single tyrannical Emperor or Empress couldn’t ruin us all. Or am I not understanding that correctly?”

“No, Vasco, you’re right.” Thomas shakes his head. “But I don’t necessarily think that’s a conflict of interest. I’m sure that Daud would stop me if I became a warlord or something.”

Daud could never hurt Thomas. Never. He’d let the rest of the Empire burn before that.

“I wouldn’t really be against it,” Thomas continues. “I just worry that it’ll be too much, juggling both positions. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed.”

Daud looks down to the table. “About the other position,” he starts. No, he needs to say this to Thomas’s face. He looks up. “I still don’t think I should be your Royal Protector.”

A dramatic gasp emits from Lydia’s direction, but Thomas’s eyes don’t leave his. “Daud, we talked about this…”

“And my opinion still stands. I don’t think I’d be the best choice.”

“If this is because of what happened to Billie…”

“Is that it?” Lydia’s hand lowers from her mouth, her face going soft. “Oh,  _Daud,_ that wasn’t your fault.”

“Fuck me, Daud.” Lizzy shakes her head. “We’re not doing this. You’re not blaming yourself for that bullshit.”

“Yes, Daud, they were witches. There was  _nothing_ you could have done differently. The Empress’s death was tragic, and the only person who could have stopped it was the Crow Queen herself.”

Daud just shakes his head. “It’s not about how I let Billie die, it’s-”

“You didn’t-”

“It’s  _not about her.”_ Daud silences Thomas with a sharp look, and he pouts. “I told you. Politically, it’s a poor move. I’m old and a felon. That won’t reflect well on you.”

Lizzy raises her hand. “I mean, you’ll get the felon thing waived when you’re pardoned for the murder. Just saying.”

“The public opinion of me still isn’t very positive.”

“Yes, but-” Lydia pauses, nose wrinkling as she thinks. “Once everyone knows you didn’t kill the Empress, they’ll change their minds!”

“People didn’t really like me before that either.” Daud turns back to Thomas. “I told you, I’ll do it if you insist, but you’re better off picking someone else.” He waves his hand. “Promote Lizzy.”

Lizzy pauses in picking her nails with her fork. “Me? As Royal Protector?”

“It’s up to Thomas, but I’d vouch for you.”

She tilts her head. “Do I have to play nice with the rich fucks?”

“No…” Daud groans.

She slams her fork down on the table. “Then fuck yeah, I’m in!”

Thomas actually starts to laugh, smiling a bit. “I like that idea too. But-” He turns back to Daud. “But I’d really...rather it be you.”

Daud presses his lips together and stares at the rim of Lizzy’s coffee cup.

“Can we...talk about it more later?”

“There’s nothing left to talk about,” Daud says, digging back into his breakfast. “If you want me to take the position, I’ll do it.”

“But I don’t want to force you-”

“I don’t  _want_ to do it, Thomas. That’s not going to change. Either order me to do it, or find somebody else. End of discussion.”

And Daud ignores the way Thomas’s hands shake, the way his eyes stare at him until  Vasco awkwardly starts up another subject. Conversation resumes, Daud eats, and Thomas starts to talk and laugh almost normally if Daud didn’t know him so well. Didn’t know his pauses, the way his eyes dart to him and away again, didn’t know him well enough to know it was all forced.

But he’s forgotten about the files.

 

* * *

 

_‘Why have you lied?’_ Billie presses him as Daud ascends the stairs, the parcel tucked under his arm.  _‘He knows what you are doing. You’re deluding yourself to think he can be fooled so easily.’_

“Not now, Billie,” Daud says tiredly. Then he pauses and checks behind him. Last thing he needs is someone overhearing him converse with his dead Empress.

Billie just thrums harder, her anger rolling off the Talisman as swiftly and mercilessly as the waves.  _‘You’re each other’s only family. And you strain that bond with every swipe of your sword and every falsehood that rolls off your tongue.’_

What did she want him to do, tell Thomas about the Mark? About the Outsider, the Void? Tell him all the things Daud’s done? Tell him what’s _really_ happened to Billie?

No. Some things were not for Thomas to know.

_‘I know you do it for love, but you must know that you cannot protect us forever.’_

“No,” Daud agrees. “But I can protect him from this.”

He locks the door and sets the binder on his desk. Really, Daud has no intention of keeping this information from Thomas forever. Daud just doesn’t want to deal with the conversation that’ll result from telling him now. With discussing the Rat King.

He is Daud’s alone. Forget Thomas’s plan to seek them out, have  _others_ capture them-Daud has no intention of allowing it to get that far. Starting a witchhunt for the two will put a target on Thomas’s back, and while Daud is certain he’s capable of fending them off this time, there’s absolutely no way he will ever allow them that close. No way he’ll risk it.

Daud will find them and kill them before they can harm a single hair on Thomas’s head. And then, afterwards, he’ll confess to Thomas everything he knows. Because then they’ll be dead. Unable to hurt anyone.

And Billie will be free by then. The thought puts a knot in Daud’s stomach.

Billie, whose energy roils through him as he pops open the binder and spreads the contents out across his desk. She doesn’t need his consent, can form herself in his hand and speak her mind whenever she pleases, yet she’s asking him for permission.

And Daud is in no mood for it. “Shush, Billie. I’m busy.”

She settles down, discontent coloring the waves.

Daud pulls out his pen. His bonecharm that helps him filter out the excess noise that rattles around his brain, helps him focus.

And the little brown book bound in leather that Lydia gave him.

Daud is used to keeping logs, accounting ledgers when he was broke and little notes to himself, reminders to buy more ammo or that Billie needed new socks or whatever it was that he didn’t want to forget. Later on he wrote more, after he became Royal Protector and his days were filled with something more meaningful. Summaries of what they did that day, where they went, what Billie accomplished. Observations. Musings. Facts and the logical reasonings that followed them.

He never  _journaled._ At least he didn’t like to think of it as such. He left emotions out of it. No point in writing that bullshit down, where anyone could read it and know everything.

But still, his logs were classified information. Anyone who managed to snoop through his room and found his log would have a detailed description of the Empress’s daily schedule and a fairly accurate calendar of her future obligations. Not to mention information about her health and her personal life-it just wasn’t good to leave yawning open for anyone to read, and Daud has never been smart enough to write in code with any fluency.

But when he was young, when Daud still lived with his mother, she taught him how  _she_ learned to write. Back in Pandyssia, though they had called their home something else. She showed him how they formed their letters, bits and pieces of the language she was desperately trying to hold onto.

It had confused him at first. The teachers at the school she sent him to had smacked his hand with rulers when he was learning to write in the Imperial style, when he’d cross the letters and write Pandyssian ones in their place. But eventually the two alphabets had melded rather nicely in his mind, and he could switch between the two with ease.

While his mother had taught him her way, he had taught her the new one. He didn’t realize it until he was an adult, but when he came home from school and she’d have him show her what he learned that day, she was trying to learn herself. She’d sit him in her lap and curl her hand around his as he wrote, rest her chin on the top of his head and whisper into his ear. Sometimes questions, sometimes encouragement, sometimes teasing. She was a harsh woman and certainly spared him nothing, but he could never call her cruel. It wasn’t like that. Not to him.

And fuck, it’s been over thirty years. He needs to get over her.

What his mother had taught him had come in handy years later. The Pandyssian alphabet, all strange loops and harsh angles. The finer points of the language have been lost in the space of his head, but he remembers those letters. Remembers how to use them, how to sound them out phonetically.

After seeing what Reed did with Delilah’s code, Daud knows his own his laughable. Anyone with a mind for it would be able to crack the code in minutes. And there were certainly more people in the Isles who knew the language, better than he did. Anyone smarter than Daud, which wouldn’t take much, would bypass his bullshit and be able to read his entries with ease.

But it made him feel better. Writing in his language, and using Pandyssian letters in place. And that’s how he’s been writing his log as of late.

Stupid shit. Plans for after he becomes Spymaster. Discussing who among them could almost be trusted. He doesn’t talk about anything incriminating. Nothing about magic. Nothing about Billie.

It was purely for the purpose of organizing his thoughts, and that’s why Daud opens to the next blank page, dates it, and props it open while he unwraps and spreads the contents of the parcel over his desk. Slips the bonecharm into his breast pocket. Rose didn’t make this one for him-he found it outside in the river mud, and he’s still unsure if the tiny, hairline crack he can only just feel with the pad of his finger means it’s corrupted or not. It works well to help him concentrate, but it almost closes him off from the rest of the world while doing so. Last time he used it, he’d burnt his arm after holding it close to the stove while engrossed in his book, and hadn’t noticed the pain until Lizzy smacked him and pointed it out. It leaves him little control over the direction his concentration takes, often jumping off and hyper-focusing on different tangents until Daud dismisses them and guides himself back. And when he removes the charm, he gets wicked headaches that last for hours. He’s not sure if those are corruptions or features. Whichever the case, the charm is only worth using when he needs to concentrate on something important. Like now.

Whoever Galia’s contact at the archives was, they did well. The binder is packed with information. Incident documentation, autopsy results, crime scene sketches. Investigator notes and even medical records, dating several years before the incident. All details surrounding the circumstances that led up to, and the aftermath, of Corvo Attano murdering Jessamine Kaldwin.

Thirty-seven times. Daud has to hold a hand to his chest when he reads that. He stabbed her thirty-seven times. He checks to see if he was using something smaller that would require multiple cuts, something that wouldn’t kill her right away, but no, he used his sword. He used his sword to stab her in the chest thirty-seven times.

The files containing sketches of their likenesses, but they spark no recognition in Daud’s memory. Attano has typical Serkonan features, tanned skin and a broadened nose, dark hair far past regulation length. Jessamine looks like a Kaldwin. Round face, sharp, sculpted features. A beauty mark at her lip. Far prettier than Delilah. It’s a stark contrast to the sketches done of her corpse, rib bones exposed and covered in blood.

Looking back in the reports, Daud sees that Attano won the Blade Verbena, Karnaca’s prestigious dueling tournament, back in 1814 at the age of sixteen. Served on the Grand Serkonan Guard for two years before being sent to Dunwall and, surprisingly, working for Emperor Lurk himself. Worked at the Tower for a year before the Emperor transferred him into Euhorn Kaldwin’s employ, to serve as his daughter’s bodyguard. So Daud knows that Attano had training. Probably had much of the same training Daud received himself.

Daud knew how to kill someone long before he ever worked for the Crown, and there was little they could have taught him about that. He got other things out of his lessons-how certain poisons tasted, how being sleep-darted felt, how to spot potential threats to his Empress’s safety. How to move and cover his charge so she wouldn’t be exposed while he fought an assassin off. The lessons on killing, those were largely useless. But through them, Daud knows what methods Attano had been educated on.

What most, dime novels and petty gossip, didn’t seem to take into account was that it took  _effort_ to kill someone. Human bodies were squishy, weaker and more fragile than most people like to admit, but they were not designed to die easily. Meat and bone could be cut, but there was resistance to the act. It required force, physical exertion that surprised Daud the first time he cut someone with a blade. You needed strength for it. Daud has plenty of muscle, and he’s been killing for so long that exercising them is like second nature. But it’s still physically taxing, an exercise of both mind and body.

Swords were designed to make people like Daud’s job easier. Long, kept razor sharp, handle molded to fit into a clutched fist. Engineered to make the act of killing all the less taxing on the person wielding it.

There’s reasons Daud usually goes for the throat. It’s soft, unprotected, and relatively little to go to accomplish your goal. The downside was that it was messy, but that’s why Daud wears gloves. With smaller blades he’ll often try for the eyes, little resistance and it promises a quick death. (No, Attano did go for the eyes. Once. So thirty-six stabs to the torso, and one inserted in her left eye, jerking his wrist until it cut through the front of her skull and partially severing her nose) The temples were also good targets. Thinnest part of the skull, under which flowed some of the most vital blood vessels, carrying life-sustaining blood to the brain. Objectively little force was required to pierce the bone, and the trauma to the brain would cause close to instant death.

Below the neck got a little trickier. Daud often aims for the stomach-less so now, as the idea makes his own turn over something awful. While flesh and muscle were still a chore to cut through, the stomach was at least unprotected by bone. The main problem being that the organs of the stomach, while of course being vital to the body’s continued function, rarely caused instant death in the event of their destruction. It would leave the victim to bleed out, during which time they could fight back, scream and attract attention, or even receive medical care that would undo his efforts. For that reason, when going for the stomach, Daud often aimed high and thrusted upwards. With luck and good aim, he’d pierce the lungs, or even the heart. Bypassing the hard bones that protected these organs, getting your blade between the ribs, that was a gamble, and if you bet wrong you’d be hitting bone. Which took a great deal more force to push through and would ultimately dull your blade all the faster.

Daud and Attano were both trained to kill fast, without resistance, keep it simple so they could return to guarding their charges. Targeting the neck, the stomach, the soft underside of someone’s chin. Fast, quiet, and with as little exertion on their part as possible.

Attano had employed none of that when killing Jessamine.

He had hacked at her. Stabbed her in the chest over and over and over, hit bone and let it splinter off and chip his blade. An experienced swordsman like him should have known how to kill someone in one stroke, but even to a rookie who didn’t know where to hit, it would be hard  _not_ to kill someone after a couple blows with a standard-length blade.

She had already been dead. And he just kept stabbing.

That took energy. Standing there, cutting through bone, over and over again while blood slickened the hilt and slipped in his grasp. Daud can imagine being that angry, yes. Losing himself in the rage. He cannot imagine doing it to someone he loves.

Fuck, the thought of stabbing Billie just the once, one single stroke through her gut, left him physically nauseous. He can’t imagine doing it thirty-seven times. To keep going long after her screams had stopped, her voice silenced. After her eyes had gone dull and there was nobody in there to feel his blows. He’d have come to his senses at some point. He would have gotten  _tired._ His arm would have started to hurt from the strain and he would have had to adjust his grip when the hilt became slippery with her blood.

Attano had lost his mind. Either that, or he truly and honestly hated Jessamine Kaldwin.

Daud pages through the eye-witness report. The actual act of stabbing her, that had gone unseen. The two had gone for a walk. The Kaldwin residence apparently had a labyrinth built into their garden, eight-foot-high shrubbery and prickly flowers. They had weaved their way through the maze, coming to rest at the back, farthest from the rest of the grounds. Where the property bordered the cliffs, and overlooked the sea. Daud imagines Jessamine was using the opportunity to formally break off their affair.

Guards stationed outside had heard Jessamine scream. By the time they wove through the vegetation, her cries had pewtered out and she was lying there, her chest split open, bloody and raw. Dead.

Corvo Attano was standing over her, a bloody blade in his hand. He looked over to them. Made eye contact.

Then he dropped the sword, turned on his heel and swung his legs over the wall. And dropped.

Never even a word. Most of the reports refer to him as being very quiet-to the point where many thought he was mute. He was tall, built like a gymnast and skin the color of desert sand. A master swordsman. And there were whispers of black magic use, near the end.

His body was never found, of course. Daud’s been to the Kaldwin manor, knows the place the reports are talking about. They’d ripped out the labyrinth and Daud had no idea it was where Delilah’s sister had been murdered, but he remembers the cliffs. The drop-off. A sharp decline, jagged rocks, and pounding waves strong enough to pulverize bone. It would have been dangerous to send boats out. Not worth it, for the body of one Serkonan guard. It doesn’t surprise him that nothing was ever pulled from those waters.

Because who would have thought Corvo Attano would survive that fall?

If Daud thinks on it, he’s sure Attano never even hit the water. There had been a plan in place to save him, and gambling with his chances on the rocks didn’t fit into that. If Attano had really tried to kill himself, he wouldn’t have stopped there. He would have climbed back up and jumped again. Would have swam further out to sea and drowned himself. Daud would have.

No, Attano didn’t jump to his death, and he knew it at the time. But that didn’t...fit.

If he went by the storyline the Watch had constructed, the motive behind the killing was jealousy. A crime of passion, a spontaneous murder after Jessamine ended their affair. He snapped, killed her, and then killed himself to escape from his crimes. Exactly what Daud had supposedly done, except he wasn’t given the opportunity to haul himself over the wall and throw himself to the tides.

Only it wasn’t spontaneous. Couldn’t have been, if Attano had safeties in place, some way for him to survive the drop. He had planned to do it.

Why?

Daud supposes he could have known Jessamine planned to break up with him. She might not have even done it that day-or if she did, it could have been a coincidence. But that takes the ‘blind rage’ explanation out. A rage like that, one that blocks out your senses and leaves you a slave to your own thoughtless anger, that was an explosion. A hot, bright, horrific burn. But those fires can’t maintain themselves. They burn up. You couldn’t nurse one for days, making plans and keeping cool to avoid suspicion. It didn’t work like that.

This was a slow burn. Like burning a wet log, slower and colder, but it would get into your lungs and choke you dead all the same.

He doesn’t know how the fire was ignited. Frankly, Daud doesn’t care. Whether he loved her or not, whether it was out of jealousy or hatred, Daud doesn’t care. Jessamine Kaldwin has been dead for years. It’s over.

He wants to know how Delilah got involved. Because he’s positive, completely and utterly convinced, that she had a hand in this. The similarities between Jessamine’s murder and Billie’s assassination, the fact that no one stood to gain more from Jessamine’s death than Delilah herself. There was just no way she hadn’t. Had she simply seen Attano’s discontent and took advantage? Or had she turned him against Jessamine, turned him into a murderer, turned him into the Rat King he’d become?

And what of the Crow Queen? If there wasn’t a pile of evidence to the contrary, Daud might believe the Crow Queen to be Delilah herself, but he knows they’re separate people. Was she involved in all of this, or did she come later?

Daud thinks on that little girl. Emily. She was Corvo’s daughter, could be no one else. He hadn’t gotten a great look at her, during the maelstrom of images and emotions that moment was, with her hand covering half her face in a childish imitation of a pirate. Dark hair, round face, a wide-set button nose. Her skin just a smidge darker than your typical Gristolian.

She couldn’t be that young. She had looked around Reed’s age, and that would put her birth...before Jessamine’s death? Around that time, at least. He isn’t about to start counting down on his fingers for this.

Daud had assumed her mother was the Crow, but then, he could be incorrect. He doesn’t know how they met, but Attano clearly loved the woman, and if she had been Emily’s mother it meant Attano moved on damn fast. Or he’d never been that attached to Jessamine and the killing was purely political. Or he could have been fucking the Crow at the same time. Any explanation worked, really.

But...he has no proof the Crow is Emily’s mother at all. He flags that line in his journal, just in case. He can come back to the theory later.

It really didn’t matter who her mother was. All it told him was that Attano was involved with someone else, either before Jessamine’s murder or directly after it. That could be evidence against the ‘crime of passion’ excuse, supporting Daud’s theory that Delilah paid him to kill Jessamine. He supposes Delilah could have sent one of her witches to seduce him as well, like she did for Daud.

Delilah’s mysterious absence before her sister’s murder comes to mind. Daud had scoffed at the rumors that she was off having a child, but that…

Oh.

Oh,  _gross._

Okay, Daud thinks, after he finishes dry-heaving. He has no proof Attano had an affair with Delilah as well, but it...fit. Fit nicer than he’d like.

Emily would be around eleven, then. Ugh, Delilah had a baby? How did she do that when she was approximately 0% body fat? How did her stomach just snap back? If he thought she’d give him anything to use as an answer, he’d ask Billie if Delilah had any stretch marks or scars on her belly-women always did after pregnancy, didn’t they? He saw Rose’s when she was being treated by Trimble, and his mother had numerous lightning-bolt marks on her stomach Daud used to trace with his short little fingers. He’s surprised Delilah was even able to conceive, as skinny as she was. Billie couldn’t menstruate when he first met her, even though she was old enough, she was so thin. She only started bleeding after Daud managed to put some weight on her-freaked the fuck out, of course, since her worthless mother never taught her anything apparently. One of the few times Daud wished he had been normal and married a woman so  _she_ could deal with that. He thinks he ended up just buying her some tea and chucking a book about it at her head. Quality nurturing. How Billie put up with him, he’ll never know.

Detracting again. Daud flags the line about Delilah being Emily’s mother as well. After staring at the page for a moment, he leans over and pulls open the drawer with all his ‘evidence’, the various pieces and notes he’s found regarding his missions. He picks up the Crow Queen’s throwing knife, but only to set it aside. He’s already examined it thoroughly. It unfolds into three blades, though Daud hasn’t been able to figure out how to trigger that mechanism without nicking himself as he did. Or how that would really make the knife any more useful. There’s no insignia, no factory stamps. Just the blades and a carved whalebone handle. It tells him nothing.

The instruction sheet Delilah gave to her witches gets fished out, flattening it atop his desk. The way Delilah signs off still makes his stomach clench in anger, but he pays attention to the wording. No, she only refers to Emily as Corvo’s daughter. But she also refers to herself as the Empress, so keeping with reality isn’t a predominant theme here.

It would certainly explain why she was trying to kidnap the girl. Daud thought it was to get back at the King and Queen, but he supposes it could just be a really weird, arcane custody battle. Foisting their daughter off on Corvo to raise would make sense from Delilah’s standpoint. Being a young, unmarried mother wouldn’t have killed her political career, not like it would have a few decades earlier, but it would certainly throw a wrench in it. Not to mention kids were time-consuming. Daud should know. Even with maids and governesses and the like, they still needed attention, time Delilah likely couldn’t be bothered to give. But if Corvo was actively campaigning against Delilah, obviously she’d have to take Emily back.

He presses his lips together as he makes his notes. So, if all his theories were correct, Delilah had seduced Corvo Attano much like she had seduced Billie. Had his child. Convinced him to kill her sister. If he put that information out, it would certainly quash any loyalty the people might have for her. Not that Delilah really needs help earning the ire of the Empire. The only people who don’t openly despise her are either too afraid to declare it or are benefitting from her in some way, or both. And her witches, but the witches are dead women walking.

Back to how it relates to Attano. He can do nothing but make wild guesses as to how Attano met the Crow Queen,  how they amassed their criminal empire. There’s still the old mystery-how they both bore the Mark. Had they been Marked after joining forces, or was the fact that they were both Marked the reason the started working together in the first place? He can infer that they had likely worked with Delilah before, that Billie’s assassination hadn’t been a one-time thing.

Apparently, however, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to their working relationship. Delilah was their enemy now. Their shared enemy.

Whoever said that the enemy of his enemy was supposed to be his friend had never known hatred like Daud does.

He doesn’t really give a shit if they regret it, if they’re fighting Delilah to make up for what they did. Billie is dead no matter what their feelings on the matter is. They can redeem themselves when they bring Billie back to him. Barring that, Daud will hate them through the end of time.

He taps the end of the pen against the page. So now he has a name. The name of a dead man. Knowing Corvo Attano is the Rat King takes a weight off his mind, the questions burning in the back of his skull for several days now, but it gives him little edge. He still doesn’t know where they are. He still doesn’t know how to  _kill_ them.

Delilah would. She had scouts out looking for them, but Daud’s sure she has an inkling of where their base is located. And she must have ideas on how they can be killed.

He’ll have to find her office, comb through her files when he returns to the Tower to kill her. He could do it after Thomas is crowned, sure, but that’ll be a few days after the fact. They had planned to lie low for a week or so, wait for the Watch and the Overseers to rise up and snuff out Delilah’s now-powerless witches before allowing Thomas back into the fold. Quashing fires, Trimble had referred to it as, and they needed to make sure their new Emperor wouldn’t be hit by the embers. And as much as Daud dislikes the thought of hiding away while someone else does the dirty work, Thomas’s safety is now, and forever will be, his highest priority.

He doesn’t want to risk someone stealing or accidentally throwing away the information he sought. And he doesn’t want to crown an Emperor with the threat of _them_ hanging over their heads. He will not give them the opportunity to hurt Thomas. He’d stay here, safe and hidden, preparing to take his sister’s throne and Daud would eliminate the threat before Thomas knew one was posed to him.

Delilah might hold a secret to their weakness, Daud thinks as he pages through the notes another time. But that’s if things go smoothly. And Daud has learned better than to count on things going smoothly. He needs to formulate a plan, a way to ensure that the Crow Queen and the Rat King die by his hand in the days immediately after he kills Delilah.

Then Thomas could be crowned. He would be safe. Daud could let Billie go. The plague would be cured and this nightmare will meld into daylight. And Daud could focus on living out the rest of his sad little life.

He’s losing focus again. Obviously, he doesn’t want to involve Lizzy again, doesn’t want to put anyone else in danger. But the circumstances might demand it. The Queen and King, they’re his, but he might need help with their Cardinals. He can ask his Bonded for that. Lizzy, Paul, and Galia could keep them at bay while Daud dealt with the bosses.

The memory of the Rat King getting his hands on Lizzy, choking her and threatening them and watching her squirm and suffer at his hand, it burns in his mind. But it won’t be like that again. He’ll keep them away from her. Just Daud and them.

And...he could take a page out of their book.

The girl was key. Daud’s loathe to bring her into this-he had one rule during his time as a thief and sort-of mercenary. No kids. He absolutely refused to hurt children. That was his line, and he’d abandoned jobs before after finding out kids were involved. As wicked as he’s become, Daud still wouldn’t stoop low enough to hurt a child. It wasn’t Emily’s fault that her parents were monsters.

But he didn’t  _need_ to hurt her. Daud doesn’t have it in him to harm a little girl, even the daughter of two people he hates most in the world, but her father doesn’t know that. He just needed to make it look...he could get the King to stand down, just like they almost had him, and then it would be easy, so easy-

“Daud.”

Daud scrambles to shove the papers back, but stops himself when he realizes how suspicious that looks. Instead he just shuts his journal, sets down his pen under Thomas’s watchful eye.

“I’m busy, Thomas.”

“We need to talk.”

“Where’s Vasco and Rose?” Daud turns to him.

“They have their own stuff to do. Their lives don’t revolve around me.”

Not true. Vasco doesn’t have any chores besides the ones he volunteers for, and Rose is purposely given few chores because Daud talked to Gerald. Her main job was to entertain Thomas now. Not that she minded-or that he’d tell Thomas that.

“It’s just that you three seem pretty friendly-”

“They’re out at the mall, okay, I asked them to leave me alone.” Thomas blows air out of his mouth. “Quit trying to beat around the bush. I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were.” Daud begins to organize the papers into piles. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“No, you’re going to tell  _me_ some things. And you’re going to start with what was in that package Galia gave you this morning.  _Now.”_

Daud pauses, his hands coming to rest on the edge of his desk. He slides his eyes over to Thomas’s figure at the side of the room. “Don’t speak to me that way, Thomas.”

“Why not?” Thomas’s arms are crossed, his face turning a deeper shade of pink as he stares Daud down. “I’m the Emperor now, I can do what I want.”

“You might be an Emperor, but I’m still-” Daud stops and swallows, turning his eyes back to the desk. “I’m still the person who raised you. Respect me for that, at least.”

Thomas looks to the floor, his cheeks burning. Daud stands up and starts tucking the papers back into the binder.

“So what are those?” Thomas’s voice is quieter now, even.

“I told you, it’s my business.” Daud’s hand hovers over the clasp. He’ll know eventually. Bite the bullet. “If it really makes you feel better, you can look at it.”

Thomas scrambles over, fingers fumbling with the clasp as he cracks the binder open with one hand and digs out the first few pages. Daud watches his face turns to confusion. “The Kaldwin murder? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because your sister wasn’t the first noblewoman Delilah had killed,” Daud says, his voice hard. Thomas looks up at him and Daud has to turn away. “And I think Corvo Attano is still alive.”

“You think?”

“No. I know he is.”

Thomas watches his suspiciously as he shoves the papers back. “How? What does he have to do with anything?”

“It’s complicated, Thomas-”

“I’m banning several phrases from this conversation, including that one along with ‘you don’t need to know’ and ‘don’t worry about it’.”

That was fair.

“Can I say I’ll tell you later?” Thomas’s face is stone.

“No. Try again.”

“It really is complicated,” Daud tells him, motioning with his hands. “As in, we’d be here for several hours explaining shit.”

“Then give me the short version.”

Okay, fine. If Thomas wants to be left hopelessly confused, he’ll let him. “He’s a witch, and he helped kill your sister. And furthermore, I’m pretty sure he had an affair with Delilah and fathered her daughter.”

“Delilah has a…” Thomas pauses, then presses a finger to his mouth. “She did say...that definitely fits.”

Daud scoops up his parcel and journal and turns away. Thomas opens his mouth before he’s taken his first step.

“How do you know any of this?”

“Thomas, I  _promise_ you, once I have proof I’ll lay it all out.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Daud lifts up his mattress and shoves both pieces underneath. Thomas will surely try to get his hands on his journal-good fucking luck while Daud’s asleep on top of it.

“Daud, I’m serious. Why are you keeping secrets from me all of a sudden?”

“Because, Thomas,” Daud sighs, exasperated. “Some things are better for you not to know.”

“I’m not a child, alright, I’m about to be in charge of an Empire.” Thomas huffs. “I can  _handle_ it.”

“I know you can.”

“Then why won’t you tell me? Wouldn’t it be easier than arguing with me about it?”

Daud reaches out and presses his palm against the wall. “No.”

“Is my questioning not annoying enough? Because I can ramp it up until you get tired of it.”

“Thomas…” Daud closes his eyes. “For the last time. I don’t  _want_ to talk about it.”

“And I do!”

“Well that’s too bad!” Daud turns on his heel, pointing at his chest in earnest. “Because sometimes I have to choose what’s best for the both of us!”

“Seriously? You haven’t fed me that line since I was twelve.”

“Well, you haven’t earned it until now.”

Thomas’s nose wrinkles as he grimaces. “I’m an adult, Daud.”

“You’re not, actually.”

“I’m close enough, okay? And apparently I’m mature enough to sit on a throne and deal with all the other bullcrap nobody else feels like bothering with!” Thomas throws up his hands.   
So what, I’m old enough for that, but not old enough to be respected as an adult?”

“You saw what your sister had to deal with. You know that’s the case.”

Thomas scoffs. “But you actually went to bat for her! You  _fought_ for people to respect her! And now you’re the worst offender! I’m older than she was!”

Daud closes his eyes. “That’s  _different.”_

“How?!”

“It just is, Thomas.”

“And there you go again.” Thomas shakes his head, looks off to the far wall. “Evading my questions, giving me useless answers. What am I supposed to do when I’m in court and somebody brushes me off like that?”

“They won’t,” Daud growls. “They’ll give you the respect you deserve.  _I’ll_ ensure that.”

“But you don’t need to respect me?”

“I respect you! But my business is my business, it doesn’t concern you or your job so you have no right to be butting into it!”

“It’s my business when I’m stuck here wondering if you’ll come back alive!” Thomas yells. “And if you die, it’ll be because of me! It has _everything_ to do with me! So if you’re not going to tell me as Thomas, then as  _your Emperor_ I  _command_ you-”

Then Daud shifts. He only means to cross his arms, roll his eyes-a childish reaction, he knows. Disrespectful and juvenile, but not threatening.

But Thomas doesn’t know his intent. Thomas only sees the shift in posture, sees Daud raise his hands ever-so-slightly.

And Thomas  _flinches._

Daud pauses, his mouth slack. Thomas shrinks away, his body stiff, fear played across his expression. Fear of him.

Daud has  _never_ hit Thomas. Hit Billie, yes. Always regretted it immediately, and not just because the Emperor would have had him whipped within an inch of his life if he’d ever caught Daud raising a hand to his daughter. She pushed all his buttons-some of which she installed herself-but it was never her fault when he lost his temper. It was his responsibility to keep his anger in check. Never hers.

Thomas used to cry when he and Billie fought, cried at the screaming and the blows. But Daud never turned it on him. There were little things, smacking his hand away at the dinner table, yanking him by the back of his shirt when he nearly stepped out into traffic, things Daud had certainly done with a little more force than necessary. But they weren’t done with the intent of hurting him.

He can’t stomach the thought of intentionally causing Thomas harm. Of punching him, slapping him across the face, hitting him hard enough to leave bruises on his body. It makes him just as sick as he is remembering all the bruises he left on Billie’s. Up and down her arms, the back of her shoulders and at her ribs. The side of her face.

But he’s never raised a hand to Thomas. He has no reason to be afraid of Daud. Something occurred that  _gave_ him reason, and Daud wants to know what. Who.  _Why._

But Timsh is dead, and Delilah will soon follow. And showing his anger now is not going to make Thomas feel any better.

Daud takes a step back. Flattens his hands out, presses them against his thighs. Where Thomas can see them. “Let a man have his secrets, Thomas.”

“Why do you  _want_ to keep secrets from me? I’m your…” Thomas swallows. “Why can’t you trust me?”

“It’s not about trust. It’s about  _respect._ Do you want to talk about secrets?” Daud’s fingers dig into the fabric of his pants. “Do you think I don’t wonder what Delilah put you through? That I’m not curious about what you do when you disappear for hours with your friends? Because I have plenty of questions, Thomas! And I don’t ask them out of respect for  _you!”_

“You want to know my secrets, then?” Thomas holds his arms out to his side. “You want to know what happened to me at Timsh’s? Fine, I’ll tell you everything! I’ll tell you that they tried to keep me drugged up so I’d be easier to deal with, and they only stopped because I wouldn’t eat or drink anything until they did! I’ll tell you that Timsh would come up when he was drunk to yell at me and let his guards ‘discipline’,” he makes little airquotes along with the words. “Me when he thought I was being too loud. Called me a brat and a bastard. And when I’d complain about my arm hurting he’d just twist it and laugh at me! You know, once I hid behind the door and hit him with a chair when he came in. I couldn’t get down the stairs fast enough and he dragged me back in, had four guards beat me until I passed out! I couldn’t move for two days!”

“That’s not what I wanted…” Daud holds his hands up.

Thomas, however, is unfettered. The words spill out, a barrage of pain. All the emotions Thomas has kept bottled up for months, since the day his sister was murdered and he ceased being a child. “And you want to know about Delilah?” he asks, swerving his head to stare up at Daud accusingly. “She didn’t really give me much of her time, busy ‘putting out Billie’s fires’, she called it. But when she did she’d try and convince me that you’d been raping Billie all her life, like I wouldn’t have  _noticed_ that when we all shared a bed. She told me that  _you_ had hired those assassins, to punish us both. And I defended you! Every time, I called her a liar, because I  _knew_ you! Or I  _thought_ I knew you!”

Daud presses his fingers to his chest. “You know me! I couldn’t have-” But then the words thicken in his throat and Daud can’t get them out.

Thomas just shakes his head. “And then, of course, she’d turn on a dime.” He flicks his hand out, disgusted. “Then she’d call me names, threaten to cut off my fingers. She’d tell me you were both dead. She told me that she cracked open your chest and ate your heart, that she threw you into the sewers afterwards. She told me she fucked herself with Billie’s hand. Said she poked her fingers through her eye sockets and violated her corpse. Then she’d tell Timsh not to worry what he did to me there! She’d make it so I’d forget everything! I wouldn’t remember any of it! But I do! I remember it all!” Thomas breathes hard, shaking, before lifting his hand up to point at Daud accusingly. “So there. I told you all my grisly secrets. Now I get to ask for yours.” He lowers his voice and speaks through gritted teeth. “What did they do to you in Coldridge?”

Daud just stares at him. There’s no words on his tongue, nothing worthy of saying. Not after that.

“What did they  _do_ to you in Coldridge?” Thomas accuses. His fists clenched at his side, shaking. Then he rolls his shoulders back, takes in a deep breath. “They burned you,” he says methodically. “I know that, I saw your scars. What else?”

“That’s it.” Daud’s tongue sticks in his mouth, but he’s found his voice.

“No! I know for a fact it’s not! You don’t sleep well, you toss and mumble shit that could give  _me_ nightmares. Nurse Trimble says you’re taking three times the normal morphine dose and you’re sneaking it behind his back. He has concerns about how reckless you’re acting, Daud, you can’t hide this stuff from me!”

Daud’s voice shakes. “Trimble had no business telling you any of that.”

“I would have found out eventually!” Thomas throws his hands up. “I’m not  _judging_ you, Daud, but you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. Tell me, or write it down or  _something._ Just quit pretending like you’re untouchable because you’re not!”

“I’m not…” Daud huffs. “You don’t need to be thinking about me that way.”

“Why, because I can’t handle it?”

“No! I can’t-”

“I handled thinking you were  _dead,_ okay, I can handle this!”

“It’s not about-”

“You’d tell me if I was Billie!”

The room goes quiet. Thomas stares at him with wildfire in his eyes, his fists shaking at his side.

Daud’s lungs are like blocks of stone, and he’s unable to tear his eyes away from Thomas. His mouth is wired shut; he has no way to retort.

The horrible thing is...he’s right. If the roles were reversed, if Thomas was the one who died and Daud was hiding Billie away in here, he would tell her everything.

He would  _want_ to tell her. He would have told her about the Mark. Would have ranted about what a prick the Outsider was. Would have been bursting to talk to her every time he uncovered a new piece of information, hear her thoughts, combine their brainpower and come up with new theories together.

Daud knows he’s always acted like he favored Billie over Thomas. Even before she was the Emperor’s daughter, before she became  _everyone’s_ favorite, he knew he acted like he preferred her company. He always felt bad about that.

But it just wasn’t true. He cared for Thomas just as much. He just didn’t  _get_ him like he got Billie.

Daud hates to think that he and Billie were similar people. She was so, so much better than him in every way. He’s never really been able to explain their relationship with words-he could never grasp quite how her brain worked, could never predict her. But it didn’t matter.

The best way to describe it was that they had an understanding, a mutual understanding of each other’s thoughts and souls. There were no barriers between them. They could speak their minds freely. With her, he found himself spilling secrets he’d kept since childhood, his innermost thoughts that were sometimes hard to admit even to himself. He’s never shared a connection with anyone like the one he had with her.

She’d know how to help him, know better than Daud ever would. She wouldn’t chastise him for putting himself in danger. She might make fun of him, insult him, and he’d bite back and they both would mean every harsh, cruel word. But it wouldn’t matter. It was how they were. It didn’t mean they liked each other any less for it.

Billie would understand his anger. Understand it a little too well, internalize it to the point of Daud’s discomfort. She wouldn’t...pity him. Not in the way Thomas does. Not in front of him.

She would still feel it. He would still be saddling her with his own bullshit, but she’d act strong, just as he does. Maybe that wasn’t right. Wasn’t good for either of them. But Daud can’t stand the looks of concern Thomas gives him, the sympathy.

He was so, so selfish. He was saddling them with his own issues either way, unfairly. It wasn’t Billie’s burden to bear either. But Daud can’t watch what the weight of the truth does to Thomas. He can’t watch someone break down over him when Daud can’t do it himself.

It wasn’t about Thomas. It wasn’t even about Billie. It was all about him.

But none of that comes out. When Daud finds his voice, it’s only to say, “That’s not true.”

Thomas scoffs. “There you go, lying to me again.” He turns away, wrapping his arms around his midsection. “Well, Billie’s not here anymore. I have to take her place, so I’m going to have to be just as strong as she was.”

“It’s not about you being strong,  _I’m_ not-” Daud’s voice breaks, and he has to breathe deeply, counting the beats, as he tries to get himself under control. “Please, Thomas, I’m trying to protect you.”

“Why,” he says evenly, his back still facing Daud. “do you think I  _need_ more protection than her?”

“You don’t.” Daud swallows. “It’s not about you. It’s about me.”

“What about you?” Thomas whirls around. “You never  _talk_ about you! You don’t talk about the things you do out there with Lizzy! You don’t talk about what you’ve had to do to put me on that throne!”

“We’re not-”

“You’ve never told me anything about your parents, or why you left Serkonos! You never told me how you ended up in Dunwall!” Thomas lists off on his fingers. “You’ve  _never_ told me how you got that scar. You never told me why Billie was with you, why either of us were living with you in the first place! You never tell me about what you keep locked up in that desk! You’re always on your guard, even  _moreso_ than you were when Billie was alive!” He waves his good arm. “The only person you  _don’t_ treat like a ticking bomb is Lizzy! You brood everywhere, you’re always in pain, and you act like you’re not even a bit sad that Billie is  _dead!”_ Tears are falling from Thomas’s eyes, but he makes no move to wipe them away, nothing to indicate he even notices. “I’ve never kept secrets from you-if anything, I should be the one not trusting you! You don’t act like you should be trusted, and I’m sick of being taken for a fool! I don’t deserve this, Daud! You can’t just keep these things from me! It’s not fair!”

He stops then, slapping a hand over his mouth to muffle his choked sob. Thomas squeezes his eyes shut, breathes in and out.

Daud just watches as Thomas collects himself. What can he say? He knows Thomas is right. He knows Thomas deserves better than this, than him. And he knows that when Thomas opens his mouth again, Daud does not have the willpower to lie to him again.

But when Thomas’s breathing has evened out, when his tears have stopped flowing and he’s brushed the ones on his face away, Thomas looks up at him with eyes more suspicious than truly angry. And nothing can prepare Daud for what comes out of his mouth.

“Are you my father?”

Daud blinks. Stares. Curls his fingers just to ensure he’s still there and hasn’t astral-projected out of his body some way.

“What?”

“You heard me!” Thomas flushes, looks to the ground. But then he looks back up, peers at Daud through his eyelashes, and says it slower. Accusingly. “Are you my father?”

Slowly, Daud steps forward. His mouth is open, but his mind is blank. No thoughts to organize, to put into words, to tell him. He reaches out to grip his bedpost, just something to anchor to as he lowers himself onto his mattress.

“Thomas…” Daud groans, leaning forward and putting his face in his hands.

There’s footsteps from Thomas’s direction. “It’s okay if you-”

“No!” he yells, letting his hands drop. “No. Oh my god, no.” He turns, looks Thomas in the eye and shakes his head. “I’m not, Thomas.”

Thomas stares at him for several long beats. Then his eyes start to water again, and he speaks in a voice so low it might as well be a whisper. “Why not?”

And Daud’s voice catches in his throat, and there’s literally nothing he can think of to retort.

Thomas looks to the ground again, trying to hold back more tears. Daud purses his lips together before waving his hand. “Thomas. Come over here. Sit down.”

He does without a word, morosely sinking onto the bed without taking his eyes off the floor. Daud almost reaches for his hand, but hesitates. He doesn’t know how to do this. He can’t read people. Twelve years of knowing Thomas, and Daud still doesn’t know how to comfort him.

Why the fuck does he  _want_ Daud to be?

“You’re sure?” Thomas breaks the silence. He looks up, staring at Daud like a kicked puppy. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“I’m not sure how it can be up for debate.”

“I know how babies are made, Daud. You’re the one who  _told_ me.” Thomas stares him down as Daud shifts in his seat. “Maybe you’re not sure, but-”

“Thomas, I’ve had sex with two women in my entire life,” Daud blurts out. Then he turns red. Shoves his face into his hands.

“So I could be-”

“Both of them were long before you would have been conceived,” he says so quickly he nearly trips over his tongue. “So no. There’s no chance.”

He almost says ‘and neither of them were your mother’ but, well, he doesn’t actually know that.

Thomas blinks at him. “When was this?”

“I was eighteen,” Daud says carefully, shoving his hands in between his thighs. “They were both whores. I paid them for it. And I didn’t knock them up, believe me. They charge extra for that.”

He actually knows because he did some work for the brothel, both before and after. He’d been sort-of friends with one of them, which was why he went to her first. He was still around for months afterwards, doing odd jobs for the Madame and occasionally acting as security when they needed extra muscle. One of them had a birthday in that time, and he bought her flowers. He looked out for the girls, them just a little more than others. Felt like the right thing to do-a few of his mother’s lessons made it with him to adulthood. In any case, he stuck around long enough to know that he certainly hadn’t gotten either of them pregnant.

Daud doesn’t mention the fact that he also paid a man to fuck him during this period of his life. It hadn’t done anything for him either, and it didn’t matter for the purpose of their conversation. Everything before that...that wasn’t the type of copulation that Thomas was talking about anyway. Not worth mentioning.

And everything with the witches...what  _they_ did to him didn’t count.

“Very funny.” Thomas crosses his legs, staring at the floorboards with a morose expression.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.” He knows of at least six instances where a whore let a client pay to impregnate her.

Thomas doesn’t answer. Daud takes the leap and scooches a bit closer.

“Thomas, you-” He pauses, checks behind him to ensure nobody had entered without him noticing. “You know Billie’s not really your sister, right?” he says in a low voice.

“I remember  _that_ part,” Thomas says quickly. “No, I remember Billie lying to the Emperor. And I remember you coaching me on what to say. I just never really cared that much.”

Good. It didn’t really matter anyway. Thomas and Billie grew up together, loved each other-for all Daud cared, that made them siblings, blood be damned. He knows Billie never saw him as anything less than her brother.

“So you remembered that, but not…” Daud presses his lips together, trying to formulate the question.

Thomas just sits there, and offers up nothing.

“How long has this bothered you?” he asks, watching Thomas’s profile carefully. Thomas just shrugs.

“Since forever, I guess.”

“Define forever.”

“Almost as long as I can remember.” He reaches up to scratch the back of his head. “When we were on the streets and stuff, I don’t think I really questioned it. You were the person who took care of Billie and me. I never really thought of what that made you in relation to us.” He shrugs. “I don’t think I understood what a father was, is what I’m trying to get at.”

Daud never really knew either. He’s been faking this guardian thing since day one.

“But after we found out who Billie really was…” Thomas combs his hands through his hair, pulling it over his shoulder. He’ll need a haircut before the coronation. “I guess...hearing about how she was related to him, the  _concept_ of real parents, that made me question things. She had a father, and she had you. So I knew they were two separate roles, but I didn’t really understand where to go from there.”

“Shouldn’t be different roles,” Daud grumbles, but then he shakes his head. “Sorry. Go on.”

That almost gets a smile out of Thomas. He tucks one leg under him and swings his free one, letting the underside of his shoe brush over the ground. “I guess that was sort of the period where I started questioning my relationship with you, but I didn’t, you know, think about it too much at first. But then I’d see the Emperor be so nice to Billie, smile at her and kiss her on the cheek like he did, and it would...upset me. I’d feel angry, I just…”

“You wanted that for yourself,” Daud finishes quietly.

Thomas stares at the floorboards for a long minute. “That sounds horrible, doesn’t it?” he finally says, turning his head towards Daud. “I sound selfish.”

“No.”

“It was stupid. I had you.” Thomas pulls his other leg up onto the bed, criss-crossing them and wrapping his hands around his ankles. “And the Emperor was plenty nice to me. I had more than almost every other kid in the Isles.”

“Thomas, you weren’t being selfish for wanting a real parent. You were a kid.”

“But I  _had_ a real parent,” he says, jabbing his finger into Daud’s sternum. “I figured, if everyone had a father out there, then mine must be you. I couldn’t imagine who else it would be. But…” Thomas trails off, and Daud presses Thomas’s hand between his own. “But it’s  _not_ you.”

Daud brings Thomas’s hand to his lips. Breathes over the heat of his fingers. “No.”

Thomas looks to the side, but doesn’t pull away. “Then who is?” he asks in a small voice.

Daud shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Thomas takes his hand back then, and Daud drops it. He folds his fingers together nicely in his lap, blinking at the floorboards a few times. “You said you found me in the trash.”

“Not like that,” Daud says hurriedly. He pushes his hand through his thinning hair. “You were looking for food. You were little, but you weren’t a baby.”

“How little?”

“I don’t...actually know. Billie and I, we made our best guess. You might not be exactly seventeen.”

“I don’t really care about that. When did you find me?”

“About a year...no, not quite that long before we moved to the Tower.” Daud taps his finger against his chin. “It was autumn. I remember because it was a constant battle to get you to wear actual clothes, and I was worried about keeping you warm.”

That gets a laugh out of Thomas, a real one. It’s short, and the smile disappears from his face quickly, but it was there.

“We tried to find your parents,” Daud tells him. “I tried for two months. And the only reason I stopped looking was because we had to move to a new district.”

“I couldn’t tell you?”

“You wouldn’t  _talk,_ Thomas. You remember the ‘Dammit Billie’ story. That was the first time I ever heard you speak, and that was  _months_ after I took you in.”

Thomas looks off, quiet. Daud taps his fingers along the quilt folds.

“Do you remember anything? From before?”

“No. Shouldn’t I?” He stares at Daud with pitiful eyes. “Like you said, I wasn’t a baby.”

“Is there...what’s the earliest thing you remember?” It’s a fine line Daud’s walking, he knows. Whatever happened in Thomas’s old life, chances are those memories were truly and completely gone. But if they weren’t, if Daud’s prodding jogged things better left forgotten, there would be no going back. And he would never forgive himself if he made Thomas remember things he had forgotten for a reason.

Did everyone really have a concrete ‘first memory’ anyway? Daud’s was watching his mother drive a knife into the thigh of a man outside the ramshackle lean-to they were living in at the time. He thinks it’s the harshness of the memory that made it stick in his mind, the shock. But Daud’s been aware from a young age that his brain didn’t work quite right, not in line with others. He might just be weird.

He never did find out what that man did to deserve his mother stabbing him, but he’s sure he earned it.

Thomas’s nose wrinkles in concentration. “I think it was...no, it was splashing in a rain puddle. With Billie.” He lets a smile grow across his face. “It was a really big one, we were on the sidewalk and she grabbed my hand. Put a finger to her lip, said that Daud was going to be  _so mad_ when he saw this.”

Doubtful. Daud never really cared about her dirtying her clothes. Boots were meant to get muddy, and he knew how to do laundry. Made her do it too.

“We jumped. And I just remember-” Thomas holds his arms out. “It was so much deeper than we thought. Billie was up to her knees, the mud nearly reached my chest. I got it in my mouth and hair and Billie was trying to quick scrub it off my face before you turned around. And then you did, and you stared at us and stared at her, and she stared back and you just turned and walked away without a word. And I...I…” His shoulders slump. “I miss her so much.”

“I know.” Daud curls his fingers. “All of Dunwall misses her.”

He doesn’t remember all that, with the mud and Billie intentionally trying to annoy him, but she was always trying to get on his nerves. Daud used to think she was trying to push him, see if he was actually a safe person who wouldn’t hurt her, but then he couldn’t understand why she didn’t leave when he’d snap and prove he wasn’t.

But he believes it. He’d often caught Billie jumping in puddles, only to pretend she was merely standing in ankle-deep water when she saw him watching her. She thought she was above it all. Her behavior was always odd, flipping between acting twice her age one minute and half of it the next. He blames her mother. He doesn’t think the woman ever allowed Billie to be a child, and she was profoundly confused on how to grow up because she had been expected to pop out of the womb having already done so.

Thomas smoothed her out. Daud had made progress by the time they met him-Billie was willing to ask for help when she didn’t know something and rarely threw her rage fits anymore. But helping him take care of Thomas, keeping him occupied helped her more than anything Daud could have ever done for her. It gave her an excuse to act young. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t justify acting her age when it was just for herself. But she could do it for Thomas. That was Billie.

He didn’t deserve her. Not for one moment of her precious time on this planet. Looking at Thomas, hearing his questions echo through his mind, the hope in his voice...Daud didn’t deserve him either. He never deserved either of them.

Daud reaches up and lets his fingers brush against Thomas’s cheek. “I don’t know who your parents are, Thomas.”

Thomas nods morosely. “Yeah, I’ve gathered that from this conversation.” He shakes his head. “There had to be someone before you. But I...guess they didn’t want me.”

“You don’t know that. Don’t make up stories that will just make you feel worse, and don’t try to remember things that might be better left forgotten.” He drops his hand, places it over Thomas’s folded ones. “I don’t know why they left you there. I can tell you that doing so was the biggest mistake of their lives. And it was...one of the best things that happened to mine.”

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all that.” Thomas shrugs, and lets the corners of his mouth twitch when Daud smacks his thigh.

“Don’t talk about yourself that way.”

“I’m just joking.” Thomas shakes his head. “Weird to think about. I doubt they ever thought I’d become Emperor one day.”

Of course not. Who the fuck anticipated that? Daud sure hadn’t with Billie.

There’s more Daud feels he should say, but when he opens his mouth all his words come up blank.

Thomas takes his hand. Looks at him with that sorrowful, pitied expression. “But they’re not here. You are. And I just...want you to be okay.”

“I am.”

“Daud.” Thomas’s gaze hardens.

Daud glances away. “I will be.”

“When?” He turns, grabs Daud’s other hand and pulls them both into his lap. “Daud, I’m not the only person who cares. Even Lizzy is worried about you. She doesn’t think you’re coping. And I have to agree. Have you even cried over her?”

“Of course I have,” Daud lies.

His face indicates that Thomas doesn’t buy his act, not for a moment, but he doesn’t press the subject. “And everything that’s happened since. It...really bothers me that you can’t tell me what happened to you in prison, Daud.”

Daud blows air out of his mouth, watches the wisp of hair hanging down his forehead flutter. “Please don’t start this again.”

“I’m not. I’m just saying that you should be able to talk about it. That, and all the other stuff you’ve been hiding from me. It’s not just because I’m curious, it’s because I can tell it all bothers you.”

Daud groans and pulls away from Thomas. Elbows on his knees, head hanging in his hands, fingers at his temples.

“I can’t,” he says. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything, I just...can’t talk about it. Not  _now.”_

“Okay.” Thomas nods, a determined look in his eye. “So when?”

“When we’re back at Dunwall Tower,” Daud says. “I promise I’ll tell you everything then. Maybe not all at once, but I’ll...I’ll try.”

“That would probably be better, honestly.” Thomas nods. “You don’t  _need_ to tell me everything right away, but...eventually? Right?”

“Everything,” Daud promises.

Well, not the Mark. Not the magic powers and the Void and the Outsider’s insufferable face. Not  _Billie._ Oh, Void, Thomas can never know what’s become of Billie. It would destroy him.

That’s not really a lot to keep from Thomas, really. It all falls under a neat banner: the Outsider’s fucking bullshit. Anything that can be summed up by that, he doesn’t need to tell Thomas. He  _can’t_ tell Thomas. A man was allowed one secret.

And keeping it means forfeiting the others. He’s...he’ll have to confess to everything the witches did to him. Tell Thomas about all the people he killed, try to justify it. But he’ll do it. In a few months. When Thomas is on the throne, everyone is safe and Daud doesn’t have other bullshit to worry about.

A hand over his, sliding in and slipping his fingers into Daud’s. “You promise?” Thomas asks.

Daud nods. “I promise.”

“Cross your heart.” His hesitance must show, because Thomas’s face hardens. “Do it.”

“Fine, fine.” Daud sits up straight and presses his thumb into his pointer finger, dragging it across his chest once and then twice. “Cross my heart, hope to die.”

“”Well, let’s not take it that far.”

Daud almost has to smile at that. He puts his hand on Thomas shoulder.

Thomas reaches up and presses his hand over Daud’s. “We’re going to be okay, right?”

“Of course we are. We’ve survived everything else the world has thrown at us.”

“Yeah.” Thomas nods, then looks down. “But this time is different.”

“It is. But the ending won’t be.”

 

* * *

 

This bed was ridiculously uncomfortable. The room was too huge, the ceilings too high. And the imposing stone walls kept the air chilled yet retained the humidity, creating an atmosphere that was somehow both cold and muggy at the same time.

Daud flops over again. He fucking hates living in Dunwall Tower already. And it’s only his first night.

He shoves another pillow onto the floor. That was a dumb idea, thinking boxing himself in with pillows would help. The bed was just so wide. He didn’t need all this space, and there were so many damn decorative pillows he might as well put them to use. But it just made him feel more suffocated than he already was.

He has to practically wiggle to turn over again. This bed was too damn soft. Daud wouldn’t have thought that was possible, yesterday, but here he is with a mattress apparently made from clouds and he sinks in so far he can barely move.

Billie’s was worse. He’d only been in her new quarters for a few minutes while they were being shown around, but her bed was absolutely ridiculous. Towered so high off the ground that she literally needed the steps to get up there, her mattress so soft that she tried sitting down and flailed as she sunk into it. Daud had to pretend not to laugh so she didn’t realize everyone got a view of her panties. Though Thomas had told her anyway.

He wonders how she’s sleeping, in her princess bed with the pink comforter and the stupid canopy. Her big bedroom with polished wood floor, expensive wall hangings, and armoires that will stand empty until her appointment with the tailors, until the Emperor can spoil her even more with new clothes. She hasn’t slept in her own room since he met her-aside from that one time they got mugged, when Daud let his ass get beat so she had a chance to get away, and she spent the night on a fire escape while he crawled behind a dumpster and hoped that the sharp pain in his side wasn’t his rib poking through his flesh. She was too afraid to climb back down and go back for him until dawn, and Daud worried he’d be followed if he went to go look for her, and then they’d take her too. Apart from  _that,_ she hasn’t slept alone in over a year. She doesn’t even like pink, he thinks.

Thomas probably isn’t doing much better. They  _insisted_ on giving them separate guest quarters, despite him telling them that Thomas slept with Daud. Or with Billie, but they knew better to mention that. Even at the hotel they’d been  ~~prisoners~~  staying in for the last week, they’d taken one bed and let Billie have the other to herself. The Spymaster agents had even wanted to put them in different rooms, saying it was uncouth for a girl her age to share a room with a grown man, but Daud had held onto her tightly. Literally gripped her arm as one of the agents tried to pull her away. He knew that if they got her alone, if they managed to separate the two, he’d never see her again.

But Thomas is six and a boy, and isn’t the heir to fucking everything, so they shouldn’t give a shit who he wanted to sleep with. Maybe if he let them believe Thomas was his son, they’d allow it. Thomas would have to get comfortable sleeping on his own eventually, but...not right now. Not like this, while there are already so many changes in his life.

Daud blows air out of his mouth. Whatever. These rooms were only temporary anyway. The staff were preparing new quarters for them, as they’re going to be permanent Tower residents. Daud gets to deal with this bullshit for the rest of his life. Hooray.

He’ll live with it. He’s not leaving Billie here alone. He can ask for a normal fucking bed.

Daud tries turning over again, and it only takes his four tries before he gives up and flops onto his back.

Tomorrow he’d...he doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s going to do tomorrow. Billie’s meeting with her tutors and has tests to take, see what she knows and what she’ll need to learn. (she can read because Daud taught her, can do basic arithmetic because she had to handle her mother’s money so the woman didn’t spend it all on booze, and will be starting at absolute 0 in every other subject-he could have told them all that right away) Daud  _would_ sit in on it, but she’s going to need quiet and Daud will have Thomas with him. (it was unnecessary too, he didn’t need to stay with her. The Emperor hired these people and they’re surrounded by guards who are sworn to protect her. Nobody will hurt her, she’s safe, and Daud still makes her keep a knife in her shoe) The Emperor mentioned he’d hire a governess for ‘the boy’, which was unnecessary. Daud was perfectly capable of taking care of Thomas. He’d welcome a tutor, because Thomas is already shaping up to be smarter than Daud is, but he can take care of the other stuff. And anyway, Thomas knows how to take care of himself pretty well for a six-year-old-it’s more of a matter of if he feels like doing so. (and how is he going to trust some random woman to be around Thomas more than Daud is, it’s bad enough they expect him to trust Billie in the hands of dozens of men who didn’t care about her until yesterday, until they found out which dick donated the sperm that made her)

No, he has to quit riling himself up. Billie asked him to back off with the hostility, the paranoia. She already has so much to deal with. He’s not going to stress her out by making her play peacekeeper. That’s not fair. He’ll play nice.

But he’s going to be ready, get her ready, for when someone comes for her. Because they will. Especially now.

Daud glares at the ceiling tiles. A flash of lightning illuminates the design, followed by a loud clap of thunder a few seconds later.

Tomorrow he’ll take his meals at the same time Billie and the Emperor do-unless the Emperor actually has shit to do, like running the Empire, instead of drolling on about it while staring at Billie like she’s the most perplexing thing in existence. Outside of that, Daud will keep Thomas out of everyone’s hair, he supposes. That’s his only job. He no longer has to worry about money. Not about feeding the streetrats or finding a dry place for them to sleep. Can’t even give Billie her fighting lessons, at least not until he convinces the Emperor that she needs them now more than ever. He has almost nothing to do. It’s an odd feeling.

The library held promise, and Daud was secretly very pleased upon hearing they had full access to all the books-but there was nothing really in there that was age-appropriate for Thomas. And he feels like he’ll get looks if he has Thomas read whale oil extraction manuals out load to him here. Maybe he could take Thomas for a walk outside, tour the gardens which were apparently very impressive. Unless it’s still pouring rain tomorrow.

Was there  _anything_ in this damn palace a kid could do? There should be more kids. Children of the servants who lived here, or politicians’ kids coming to watch their parents work. This place was like a museum dedicated to fussery, no room for living. Did they expect the Imperial Family to pop out as full-fledged adults and not have a childhood or something? He hates to think of the life Billie would have had if she was born here, if the Emperor had done his job and married her mother. No kids to play with. All fancy furniture and fake fruit you couldn’t touch. Wearing a stiff dress and sitting quietly without fidgeting, a doll to be posed, a pretty princess and never a kid.

He’s angry that the Emperor let her suffer on the streets for so long. But he’s also angry that he had the nerve to take her off them. He’s angry, so angry that she turned out to be Billie Lurk. Why did it have to be her?  _His_ Billie? She didn’t deserve this bullshit, doesn’t  _want_ it, and now they’re all dragged into this mess and they just have to pretend-

The door creaks. Daud stiffens up-another thing he hates about the guest quarters, his door doesn’t fucking lock.

Daud reaches under his pillow and grabs the handle of his knife, remaining completely still otherwise. Was someone really going to try and kill him here, in Dunwall Tower? Daud’s pissed off plenty of people during his career, people more than willing to get his blood on their hands, but they’d have to be damned determined to try and kill him here, now. Unless they were Spymaster agents, or just regular guards, ordered to get rid of him and make excuses about his sudden passing so the Emperor can have Billie all to himself. Well, they’ll get one hell of a surprise if they are here to kill him, if they ever move forward or do anything-

“Daud?”

It’s Billie’s voice. Daud releases his grip on his knife, sitting up as well as he’s able to.

Billie is standing in the doorway, wearing a long nightgown with a hideous floral pattern and sleeves too long for her arms. Thomas is at her side, gripping her hand and holding his other to his mouth.

“Hey.” Daud feigns a sleepy voice. “I thought you went to bed hours ago.”

It’s dark enough that he can barely see the whites of Billie’s eyes, but he still sees how she rolls them in her typical Billie fashion. “Thomas woke me up. He’s scared of the thunderstorm.”

“Can I sleep with you?” Thomas then slips his knuckle back into his mouth and continues sucking. He’s been doing that. Never did anything like it before this week. Daud’s been a little preoccupied with Billie to think much on it, but it has concerned him. They all supposedly need to meet with the Royal Physician sometime in the next few days-Daud might ask him about it. It’s probably not a good habit to let Thomas develop.

Daud nods. “Yeah, of course. Get up here.”

Thomas practically launches himself into the bed with him. His shirt is long and he’s not wearing any pants, which is typical for him. Daud needs to at least get him to wear underwear to bed now, but that’s a battle for another day.

Daud wonders why Thomas went to Billie first-she was several hallways away and on a completely different floor. Though her door was probably easier to pick out than the hallway filled with identical doors leading to identical guest rooms. They were numbered, but while Thomas was picking up the whole ‘reading’ thing pretty well, he wasn’t really doing so well at distinguishing numbers yet.

That was such a Thomas thing to do. Tiptoe to the other side of the palace to find Billie so she could lead him to Daud, instead of asking one of the many guards roaming the halls. Come to think of it, why hadn’t they stopped him? Why didn’t they guide him back to his room, or to Daud’s when Thomas asked for him? If they didn’t notice a confused six-year-old stumbling about,  _entering the princess’s room,_ then what good were they? The Emperor should know of such flaws in his security.

Though it doesn’t surprise him that  _Billie_ was able to slip down here undetected. The girl was sneaky.

Thomas shoves his face into the side of Daud’s chest and snuggles up to his side. Daud pulls the blankets up to cover him. “Don’t like your room?”

He shakes his head without detaching his nose from Daud’s rib. “There’s a weird lady watching me. She looks all fishy and mean.”

“She’s a mermaid. And I told you, it’s just a painting.”

“She’s scary!” Thomas lifts his head and pouts. Daud reaches up and tries to smooth down the hairs standing straight at the top of his head.

“Well, in a few days you’ll have your new room, and I’ll make sure they don’t put any mermaid pictures on the wall.”

“I’m going back to bed,” Billie announces, turning back towards the doorway. “I have a lot to do tomorrow and I need-”

A burst of thunder makes her jump, her wide eyes illuminated by the white flash that lights up the room. She stands there, watching the window nervously, only to pan back to the doorway, through to the wide, empty hallway to her empty, empty room.

“Billie.” Daud stares at her stonely. Without a word, he flips up the blankets and motions to the other side of the bed.

She stares at him hesitantly, but he sees how all her muscles relax. She turns and eases the door shut, and bounds over to the other side of the bed.

“Just for the first night,” she says, carefully easing herself up onto the mattress. “Just because of the storm. And because it makes Thomas feel better.”

“Uh-huh.” He lifts up the covers so she can slip her bare legs under them. She trekked down her barefoot and her feet are freezing-they haven’t given her any socks, only stockings, which she already hates and refuses to wear. Her father clearly has enough money to buy her better quality socks than Daud ever could, but he’s chosen to buy her more expensive clothing that was both uncomfortable to wear and completely avoided actually serving the purpose clothing was supposed to have. Daud did not understand rich people.

“I mean it.” She settles down, facing the window and drawing the blankets up to her chin. “I have to sleep in my own bed tomorrow.”

She’ll have to sneak back to her own quarters in the morning, before one of the maids come in to wake her. He knows what some people would see in this. People already assume plenty of things about Daud. He thinks it says more about them than him, but that was hardly a defense he could use if the Emperor blatantly accuses him of sleeping with his daughter.

Daud should really worry more about keeping his own head on his shoulders. He can’t protect Billie if he’s dead.

“Do I have to sleep alone tomorrow?” Thomas asks. Daud rolls his eyes.

“No. You can stay with me until our new rooms are ready.”

Then he’ll try again to get Thomas to sleep on his own. It’s not that he’s too old for this-Daud still shared a bed with his mother up until he was kidnapped, though it was more out of necessity. They never lived anywhere that had more than one bed. Billie, Thomas, and Daud hadn’t up until a few days ago. But these rich palace folk were weird, porcelain people who liked to fake perfection. They wouldn’t get it. They don’t get  _them._

Thomas yawns, resting his cheek on Daud’s bicep. “‘Kay. G’night Daud.” He raises his head, eyes already closed. “Night Billie.”

“Night-night, Thomas.” He hears her stifle a giggle. “Don’t let the bugs bite.”

“Don’t give him ideas. There are no bed bugs here,” Daud grumbles, but Thomas is too passed out to care.

He listens as Billie’s breath evens out, feels her heat melding with his under the blanket. The rain and wind are white noise to the sound of their breathing, the feeling of Thomas flopped in his arms and Billie’s back to his. Daud tips his head back and falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

It’s the pain that wakes him. Heavy and thick, deep in his chest. Daud only gets his feet on the floor before he doubles over, unable to move.

He has the short, ridiculous notion that he’s been shot. It’s the only thing he can think of to describe what he’s feeling, but really, it isn’t even close. He’s been shot where it’s broken the skin twice, and it burned more than this. Burned and ached, horribly so, but he’s still in the attic and it’s dark and he can hear people still sleeping in the next room over and his quilt is free of blood.

He  _knows_ he hasn’t been stabbed. Stabbing was more of a cold pain. It was completely different.

No, this felt like something was constricting his heart. Tightening its grip, leaving it no room to beat. He can’t draw in breath to call out for Thomas’s help. Daud can only raise his hands and press them against his chest.

There’s a black hole at the pit, a weight at the center of his heart drawing in the tissue and twisting, compressing it until it fit in that tight little space. A heaviness that dragged it down and weighed on his arteries. And despite his heart seemingly getting smaller, Daud feels as if it will burst from his chest if he doesn’t hold it in.

It aches. It’s an ache so bad it reaches in and paralyzes his lungs. He presses harder because it’s the only thing that helps.

The hardening goes away, but the ache persists. And even when that fades, the memory of it is almost just as painful.

Daud moves little by little, first his fingers and then lowering his hands, practices breathing before straightening his back. When he can move his legs, he shoves them into his boots.

Thomas and Rose are still sleeping on the same cot, while Vasco is sprawled out on a nearby easy chair, practically upside-down and his blanket on the floor. Daud picks it up and spreads it back over him before moving on, checking that the door on their side is locked, that both Rose and Thomas are covered and don’t look cold. He goes back and opens the stove, pokes the fire a bit, throws another log in. Then he leaves.

He can’t go back to sleep now, but he can’t stay awake and think. His mind is racing and he has to do something to satisfy his Roving Feet, to distract him from the pain in his chest.

Daud cracks the door to Lydia’s room open ever so slightly, listens for her slow breathing and closes it gently when he hears it. He checks the kitchen. Ricardo hasn’t even woken yet, that’s how early it is, one arm slung over Reed’s sleeping form. Downstairs, Paul and Gerald are asleep in their bunks, and he peers around the privacy screens to ensure there is a Thalia-shaped lump on her cot. Galia is fast asleep in her bed-Zhukov is still gone.

He enters the apartments Trimble’s taken over only to ensure all the windows and doors leading out of the compound are securely locked and boarded up. Does the same for all the other buildings that border the mill, checks that they’re all shut up tight and that the alleyways are all barricaded and nothing’s been breached. Peers through Lizzy and Edgar’s skylight, sees them both passed out in their beds. He goes into the mall and checks the front door for signs of entry. Paces down the hallways and checks the unoccupied stores, lifts the sliding door to Alex’s prison and checks on her, leaves before she can finish rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

By the time he climbs onto the roof, the sky is just starting to lighten. And by the time he finishes searching for ladders, makeshift stairs, anything that could be used to climb up from the outside and put a hole in their security, the sky is pink.

Nothing’s been compromised. They’re all safe, which means Daud has done his job. Which means he has nothing left to do.

Part of him wants to pull out the Talisman, longs for the comfort of her voice. But he knows it won’t fill this emptiness in him. He wants to talk to  _her._ Wants to see her face and watch the little tendrils of hair escape her bun and fall across the fringe of her forehead. He wants her to make sense. He wants her to be whole again.

He wants something to distract him, to keep him from acknowledging the wrenching, painful fact that he misses her.

Daud flops onto a bench in the middle of the mall, leans his head against the backrest and watches the pink sky through the skylight.

He hears a bird start to sing. It’s not even spring yet. Don’t they realize that it’s going to get colder before it gets warmer?

Stupid bird. They could leave Dunwall. Could fly right out, and yet they stayed.

“Coffee?”

Daud raises his head to see Eugene standing there, two mugs in hand. He lets his skull clatter back again. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I’m usually up at dawn.”

Daud pulls himself up as Eugene sits next to him, moves to accept the mug offered to him. His fingers close around it, relishing the warmth, holding the heat like an orb at his palms.

“You know,” Eugene leads in. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to linger like this. The Empress would have wanted you to move on.”

Daud just stares into the brown liquid. He knew Billie better than anyone. He knows what she’d want. He doesn’t need Eugene to tell him.

“You’re a better man for having loved her, Daud. It’s better than if you had never-”

“Look,” Daud exhales. “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but…”

But what? He stops short. ‘But I don’t want to?’

“But I don’t want to talk,” he finishes quietly.

“Then how about I talk?” Eugene says, sipping his coffee. Then he leans back, observes the sky. And he doesn’t do a whole lot of talking for several minutes.

Daud just sits there, feeling his coffee cool in his hand, wondering if he’s gotten off with this whole heart-to-heart thing. Eugene audibly swallows.

“Everyone is going to tell you,” he begins. “That time heals all wounds. That every day gets easier. That someday, it will cease hurting altogether.”

That’s utter bullshit. It’s been nearly eight months and Daud still feels the pain as crisp as sharp as the moment he realized his Empress was truly gone. The only thing time has done is given him room to feel around the pain. A way to put it on the back burner, focus on other things, but it still hurt and it still needed to be felt.

“I don’t...really like that saying. I never have.” Eugene takes a sip. Daud stays quiet.

“The world will keep turning, with us and without them.” Eugene leans forward to catch Daud’s eye. “Time passes, and it catches us in its grip. Time forces us to learn, and to heal. You have to move with the world. And the world will move on.” He trails off, his eyes focusing on the nothing in the distance. “But you won’t want it to. And that’s the hardest part.”

Then they both sit back, lean their heads up and watch the sky lighten from pink to blue-in silence, this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daud is such a weird blend of assholery, repressed trauma, and random nobleness, it's hilarious. "I'm a cold-blooded killer and have never once felt an emotion." Five minutes later: "Of course I treat prostitutes with respect, my mother raised me right!"
> 
> [This](https://youtu.be/mPJgqd1B_ns?list=PLTagxffHmpfT765IfQj68dMmfFs3W7s1f&t=23) is pretty much how the scene with Hypatia went down in my mind. I think some things might have gotten lost in the translation.
> 
> To fill in the other gays: Galia is functional gay. Slackjaw is functional bi and Corvo is disaster bi. Deirdre and Paolo are both disaster gays and Byrne is the only functional one. Joshua is a disaster gay who tries very hard. Paul is simultaneously both a disaster and functional gay who masquerades as useless to avoid responsibility. The Outsider is a disaster gay, and Billie transcends this chart. Delilah is outside the chart too, but from the other direction. I think that’s all the gays so far.
> 
> Thomas, Rose, and Vasco have unintentionally become the ghostly trio from Danny Phantom. Rose is embittered and sassy just like Sam, Vasco is basically Tucker as just a regular nerd without access to digital technology. Thomas isn't really like Danny that much, aside from them both being Good Bois and the unexpected royalty, (considering a lot of fans see Danny as the rightful Ghost King) but they both have 'the chosen one' thing going on. If this story had a 'happily ever after and everyone lived' kind of ending, I'd imagine they would solve mysteries or something. Probably murder mysteries. From Daud's own murders.
> 
> Rose isn't going to, like, have her baby in this fic, btw. She's just one of those unfortunate hoes that get freaking huge in the third trimester.
> 
> There's no actual reason why Billie is so quiet in this chapter. If I don’t give her any lines for a while I’ll usually go back and put some in, if only just to reinforce the feeling that she’s always ‘with’ Daud. But there just weren’t any places where I could have her break in without it being really obvious that I was shoving in lines just to give her lines. Maybe she's taking a nap. She deserves one.
> 
> I kind of wondered if Billie was too old to be sharing a bed with Daud, checked Google and apparently seven is considered old now to be sleeping with your parents?! But, you know, the concept of families all needing separate beds and separate rooms is a relatively Western concept that's fairly recent. A lot of cultures throughout history had the parents sleeping together with all the kids. (dunno where they kept making them, but Daud doesn't have that problem) Also, when I thought about it, Billie was abused and grossly neglected throughout her early childhood. Kids like that often experience some type of age regression. Kind of a whole 'I didn't get this from my mother but I can get this from you, now' type of thing. I dunno, I really don't think she'd be too old in any case. The last time I slept with my mom for comfort I was fourteen, after one of our pets passed away and I really needed it. Billie needs it too. (though to be fair, I would have a *lot* of questions if I saw this arrangement in real life)
> 
> This chapter is really long, and it's partly because Daud spends half of it obsessing over Corvo and what's he's doing with his dick, honestly. This is the closest we're ever going to get to Corvo/Daud. I...really don't like that pairing. The only way I could ever see it is if it was an AU where Daud didn't kill Jessamine (or, you know, Jessamine didn't kill Billie) and she and Corvo gang up and fuck him together. But even then, the story would have to be done in a delicate manner to stay true to Daud's asexuality. But now I'm off-topic.
> 
> I know I promised that we'd get the truth out of Grim Alex this chapter, and I want to say that it was originally in there but I cut it. Yes, I actually cut things from this and it still ended up being that long. Daud thinks on Corvo's dick for THAT LONG. That scene will 100% happen in the next chapter. The bad news is there's going to be two more chapters until we go murder Breanna's face. I was going to keep it at three, but there's just too much bullshit I need to get through. I'll try not to let it get up to five after the next mission. Thankfully then we're out of missions.


	18. A Better Way To Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud and Lizzy make horrible choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the very last scene is plot-critical in the slightest, the rest is just emotional bullshit and foreshadowing. Really heavy emotional bullshit. Like, I cried at one point. I think I edited out the exact paragraph that made me cry, but still. 
> 
> Literally no one in this chapter makes good life decisions. Warnings for copious amounts of alcohol, suicidal thoughts, and...not really an attempt, just kind of standing at the edge, looking down and thinking about how it would be to jump.
> 
> Also, thanks to Shurely (who always leaves me very beautiful comments-love you) for being the only person to comment on the last chapter, which ended up getting erased when I deleted and reposted the chapter due to weird formatting when I tried to edit it. I was drunk at the time so there's a 99% chance that I just fucked shit up, but whatever it's done now.

“I think it’s more of a matter of decorum,” Lydia says carefully, swallowing another mouthful of rice.

Lizzy snorts. “That’s just how shit is in the Navy. If we can throw down like men, we can take jokes about our snatches.”

“Well, maybe we should ask another lady. Rose?”

“Hmm?” Rose opens her eyes and stares blearily over the table, resting her teacup atop her belly.

“You guys look like shit, what the fuck were you three up to last night?”

“Hey, I wasn’t up to anything,” Vasco protests, taking a drink of his water. Indeed, Vasco is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He’s probably sleeping better now than he has in months, even if he does spend his nights in a chair he refuses to sit in properly.

Rose sighs and slouches down further in her seat. “We weren’t doing anything, I just couldn’t sleep well.” She tilts her head in Thomas’s direction. “Him and Daud are the ones being quiet for no reason.”

“Shut up,” Thomas says without looking up from his bowl.

“You are more ridiculously moody than usual.” Lizzy leans forward and kicks him in the shins. “What’s wrong, Daud?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit.”

“Did something happen?” Lydia asks in a hushed tone. “Or is it a private matter?”

“It’s nothing of that sort, Lady Lydia, there’s just nothing to talk about.” Thomas waves her away.

“Nothing my dick,” Lizzy snorts. “You’re both sour as all gets out. Come on, what’s got you down?”

Just then, the loudspeaker switches on automatically.

**“Attention Dunwall citizens. Tomorrow marks the birthday of our beloved fallen Empress, Billie Lurk the First. Due to plague conditions and safety concerns, there are no public ceremonies planned, but loyal subjects are encouraged to take their own time to reflect and honor her memory. May her spirit fade and become one with the cosmos.”**

There’s a ding, and the loudspeaker goes dead.

Everyone around the table is silent for a long minute.

Lizzy is the first one to straighten up. “So, uh.” She coughs. “There’s that. Your girl’s birthday tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“It _would_ be her birthday,” Thomas mumbles, not looking up from the table.

This was easier to ignore when it was still the Month of Ice. Pretend the looming date didn’t exist. But Daud’s associated Hearths with Billie now for over a decade, and now he will think of her every time he sees a calendar.

“She’d be twenty-four,” Daud says, committing the design on the ceramic of his plate to memory.

She should be. She should be turning twenty-four tomorrow and twenty-five the year after that, and so on. But she won’t. Billie will always be twenty-three. Never a day older.

_‘She plans to celebrate with a box of chocolates in bed,’_ Billie remarks with a sad sort of amusement in her voice. _‘But it will not quench the uneasiness that swells inside of her, and she will throw them against the wall in frustration.’_

The thought of Delilah lounging in Billie’s bed and eating sweets, getting her sheets dirty makes his fists curl. Billie disliked eating in bed. He’d bet she told Delilah not to do it at some point.

Lizzy fidgets. “Did you want to, like, do something for it?”

“What the hell would I want to do?”

She shrugs. “I dunno, just...something.”

It was probably best her birthday was smack at the beginning of the month. Get this over with quickly.

“Perhaps we should suspend lessons for the day?” Lydia raises her eyebrows thoughtfully. Thomas, however, just shakes his head.

“No, there’s no point in that. I’d rather be too busy to think about it anyway.”

“If you insist.”

“You two weren’t able to go to her funeral, right?” Rose asks, her eyes darting between him and Thomas. “We could hold our own service. Just a little one, say some prayers for her. Would be the perfect time.”

The idea of having a funeral here, without her body, seems ludicrously inadequate. Some flowers and a few kind words from people who didn’t even know her, no. That wasn’t a send-off worthy of his Empress. And it was pointless anyway, as her spirit is still trapped with him.

Daud shakes his head. “No, Thomas and I will do something for her. Back at the Tower. Alone.”

The rest of the table nods, like they could possibly understand. Thomas sets his drink back on the table.

“I don’t want to think about Billie right now. How’s tutoring Reed going?”

“Oh.” Lydia’s eyes widen for a moment. “Fine. Wonderful, actually.”

“You’re teaching the sprout too?” Lizzy asks through a mouthful of rice.

“In the afternoons, yes. It would be a crime not to. He’s brilliant, just...you know, in an unconventional way.”

“It’s called savant syndrome,” Vasco smirks. “Reed’s a dead ringer for it.”

“He’s not, and I don’t think you’re using ‘dead ringer’ correctly.” Rose rolls her eyes. “Savants are really only good at one thing and pretty dysfunctional at the rest. Reed’s smart across the board. And I know he talks weird, but it’s a social thing. He’s not very comfortable with people who aren’t me or our other brother.”

“Your brother’s more than just smart, Rose,” Lydia says intently. Rose nods.

“I know.”

“I mean it. He’s a literal genius.”

“I said I know! I’m actually the dumb sibling!”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Vasco says through bites of rice. Rose just shrugs.

“I know a lot because I read a lot. We’ve lived in a lot of houses with big libraries.”

“You did very well, with what was available to you.” Lydia shakes her head. “He’s outpacing me in mathematics. I was tutored in that until I was twenty and soon he’ll be onto areas of the subject I never learned.”

“He’s good at math.”

Daud pushes his chair back and gets to his feet. He tries not to make a commotion, but conversation does pause as he walks away, and only resumes after Lizzy says to ignore his dramatic ass.

He doesn’t care. He _can’t_ care, can’t get into whatever they’re talking about, can’t think of anything other than blase acknowledgement. And he can’t shake the anger he feels when he listens to them discussing such mundane topics with ease. And it was better for him to leave, because he knows it’s not their fault. They’ve done nothing to deserve his anger.

It’s just...she should be here. Billie should be next to him, rolling her eyes and already complaining about whatever event her advisors had planned for tomorrow, asking him when they could sneak out and have that boat picnic they do every year for her birthday, just them two. Daud never had much appetite on boats, felt sick with the constant bobbing, but he always looked forward to doing it anyway.

Instead, she’s in a box of stone. Cold and alone. She will never walk in the sun again, never feel its warmth on her skin. She’s a rotting corpse and he’s angry about it. He’s angry that she’s in there, he’s angry that it isn’t him, and he’s angry that all these people have the nerve to be alive when Billie isn’t.

When the people who murdered her, who penned her execution order and who held Daud back and made him watch, who stuck a sword through her and killed her in the worst way possible, still walk the world.

It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. It’s been a long time since Daud expected anything to be fair and he doesn’t expect it to be now, but he wishes it was.

He stomps up the stairs, into his attic bedroom with the intent of changing into his workboots and finding something to do. Instead he sits down on his bed, rubs his face and he breathes deeply. He knows there’s no point in being mad at the kids. They shouldn’t have to tiptoe around him, and he’d be angry no matter what they did.

He just doesn’t want to deal with them. He wants to be alone. He shouldn’t, should be spending time with people, distracting himself, but Daud wants nothing more than to sit down and wallow. Maybe that’s fitting. He’s the reason Billie isn’t here. Sitting here and suffering in loneliness, he deserves that much for allowing Billie to die. He shouldn’t deserve comfort when Billie herself is all alone.

_‘Even in the Void, I’m with you.’_

She forms in his hands, inches from his face. Daud stares and allows her energy to radiate through him in waves.

“You’re not going to let me suffer in silence, are you?”

She pulses, and Daud allows his thumb to rub over the face of the Talisman. There’s a pleasant warmth underneath his fingertips.

“I’m really not in the mood, Billie.”

_‘I see the death in your eyes, and the love that’s taken root in your heart. The pain in your hands as you try to weigh them. I only ask that you remember all that we are, when it comes time to choose.’_

Daud sighs. He brushes his lips over the Talisman, then allows it to dissipate as he gets to his feet.

Speaking with Billie never makes him feel better. It just makes him hurt more, hurt longer, and adds on an extra layer of guilt. But the thought of going forever without hearing her voice again somehow hurts even more.

Regardless, he knows she’d protest if he just sat around being miserable for the next two days. He needs to find something to occupy himself with. Thomas had the right idea-a distraction is needed.

He descends the stairs more quietly than he ascended. Passing the hallway between the attic and the ground floor, Daud’s eyes are drawn to a shadow and he has to pause on the landing to take it in.

There, in front of the mill’s single shitty bathroom, is Edgar Wakefield. Down on one knee, face pressed up against the door, almost like he’s…”

“Hey.”

Edgar jumps about three feet in the air, scrambling away from the door. “Daud! Uh...hey.”

Daud stalks forward, staring at Edgar’s face intently. “What are you doing?”

Edgar scratches the back of his head. “Just, uh...learning how to pick locks. You know, assassin skills.” He says it all in a whisper, with quick, darting glances towards the bathroom door.

“Really,” Daud says at full volume. “Because it looked suspiciously like you were trying to spy through the keyhole.” He steps forward, rapping his knuckles against the door twice. “Who’s in there?!”

“It’s Galia, fuck off!” There’s a splash, and the sound of squeaking.

Daud turns around and glares, folding his arms. Edgar tries to smile half-heartedly.

“Come on, we’re both men here. You know how it is.”

“Mind explaining it?”

Edgar motions to the door. “You probably did it hundreds of times, when you were a young stud like me.”

“Can’t say I did.”

“I mean, well…” He shrugs. “You saw the Empress naked, right? Guess you wouldn’t need to look at other women, with that hot piece of ass...around…”

He seems to figure Daud is actively trying to dismember him with his eyes, and Edgar tapers off.

Daud waits. He’s already in a bad mood. He has enough honor not to unleash it on the first person to get on his unbelievably short nerves, but if Edgar wants to goad him, Daud will gladly take his anger out on him.

Edgar looks down to the floor. Shifts on his feet, shrinks away from the heat of Daud’s glare. He’s already dug his own grave. Daud’s just waiting to see if he’ll bury himself. Finally, he speaks very quietly to the floor.

“Don’t tell Lizzy.”

“Lizzy,” Daud says slowly. “Is not the only person here you should be afraid of.”

At that, Edgar jerks his head up. “You’re like, a foot shorter than me.” He puffs his chest out. “You don’t scare me.”

His eyes say differently. But Daud doesn’t point that out. Instead, he just steps close enough to Edgar that the toes of their boots meet and Daud’s chest brushes against his beer belly.

“I should.”

Edgar just shakes. Beads of sweat are forming at his brow, and his eyes are so wide he looks like he’s been snorting cocaine.

“You don’t _need_ both your eyes, Wakefield,” Daud finally says, after a long minute of letting him sweat. He steps away. “If I ever catch you spying on any of the girls here again, I’ll remember that. You’d do best to remember it too.”

Then he whirls away, leaving Edgar alone in the hallway and smelling faintly like urine.

 

* * *

 

‘Finding something to do’ proves harder than he thought. He tries to help with the dishes after breakfast is over, but he snaps two dishes clean in half from sheer force while scrubbing and shatters a third when he gets frustrated at a particularly resistant stain. Gerald subsequently bans him from the kitchen. Then he goes to help with the laundry effort, which works out great at first as Ricardo can only carry one bucket of water at a time and Rose is no longer allowed to lift them. Then the tub is filled and he has to sit and try and remember how doing laundry was even supposed to work while listening to the two chatter away in weird half-Serkonan jargon. After one off-brand comment from Rose about his scrubbing technique, Daud throws a bar of soap at her head, and Ricardo sends him away with a few colorful parting words. Daud just counts himself lucky the man didn’t try to beat him to death with his washboard.

He tries to read and ends up angrily reading the same paragraph five times over before he calls it quits and gets up again. Then he gets sidetracked by Granny, who asks him to do an ‘art project’ with her, and he entertains her bullshit for about five minutes before he realizes his soul just can’t take it and walks away.

Spending time with Jerome usually helps clear his mind, so Daud goes there next. He gets to spend two hours rearranging machinery, picking up and slamming down furniture for whatever device Jerome is constructing that will likely blow out their power at least twice. Jerome himself gives him a wide berth, only addressing him to point out where he wants things. Paul wanders in after awhile, his eyes popping out of his head when he sees Daud with his undershirt drenched in sweat, asks him if he isn’t hot and comments that he should take his shirt off. (Daud _is_ hot, but he’s never taking off his shirt or wearing short sleeves ever again) After watching him for several minutes while sipping a pear soda, Daud snaps that he should either get a life or pick something up and help. Paul rolls his eyes and asks if he wants to spar instead.

Fighting, fighting is something Daud’s body will never forget how to do. Something he’s extraordinarily good at, where he won’t feel like a goddamn idiot in a room full of geniuses. On most days, it clears his mind.

Today is not one of those days.

“Ow!” Paul grabs for his elbow. “I thought we were just going for the disarm!”

“We’re not even using real swords.”

Paul rubs the reddened skin. “Yeah, but it still hurt,” he mumbles.

Daud huffs. His old mantra kicks in-assume all fights will be played dirty, honor doesn’t matter when you’re fighting for your life, a real assassin won’t pause just because you’re wounded-but he doesn’t voice any of it.

Paul cracks his neck, raising the wooden sword. “Okay. Let’s go again, but actually play by the rules this time?”

“Fine.” Then Daud lashes out and strikes. Paul catches it this time and deflects.

The thing Daud likes about fighting is that it takes over his attention. He has to think about everything in the moment-his stance, his blade, his opponent, their surroundings, and all the other factors that could impact the outcome. He has to think about so many things that there isn’t _room_ to think about anything else. He has to concentrate, and it’s easy to do so when there are so many things competing for his attention.

Today, however, there’s just that slightest edge of his mind that refuses to be absorbed in the activity. That little space that reminds him with every step of how he used to do this in the Dunwall Tower gardens. How he taught this same footwork to his Empress, how he watched her go from a skinny girl who needed both hands on her sword in order to have enough power to deflect his blow to a young woman who could not be bested in any dueling tournament and could probably kill him with her pinkie finger if she were so inclined.

But with every swing, the face that appears over the edge is not Billie’s. That part of his brain lingers on that, reminds him she’s gone and why she’s not here, and Daud can only be mad about it. Then he steps out once more and it starts all over again.

A particularly hard hit sends Paul hopping backwards, holding up his free hand.

“Okay, I can’t tell if you’re actually trying to kill me or not.” He drops his sword, shaking out his arm and rotating his wrist around. “Can you use something that would hurt a little less?”

“Sorry.” Daud blows out a breath. He does actually mean it, despite internally thinking Paul is being a wuss.

Paul just picks up his sword and shakes his head. “Maybe we should take a break. Almost dinnertime anyway.”

“Yeah.” Daud’s mouth feels like sawdust. He didn’t bother to eat lunch, barely ate anything at breakfast, but he’s not even the slightest bit hungry.

He grabs his jacket and shrugs it on as they walk, Paul rambling on idly. Daud’s undershirt clings to his body with sweat. A bath would be in order later. A cold one.

Galia spots them as they enter the main hall, waving them over. Daud shoves his hands in his pockets as he approaches the table. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” Galia shakes her head, then glances around the table. Lizzy and Edgar are present at the other end, standing and talking in low whispers. Galia leans in and lowers her voice. “I just needed to tell Paul about something I found doing my rounds. I-”

“What rounds?” Daud asks, trying and failing to keep his voice down.

Galia stares at him with her mouth still open, while Paul just shrugged. “Galia and I have been sweeping the area every other night or so. Nothing much, just checking around the sewers, making sure no witches have come back.”

“And I’ve been checking the district from the rooftops,” Galia whispers. “In case someone’s been poking around.”

Daud presses his lips together and breathes out through his nose. “And you didn’t _tell_ me?”

“I didn’t...think we had to tell you, we were just walking around.” Galia blinks.

“What if you _did_ run into a witch?!” he hisses.

“You gave us the Bond, so we could-”

“Yes, so I’m responsible if you get hurt!”

“We aren’t going to get hurt!” She scoffs. “We know what we’re doing.”

“And if we did find a witch, we’d totally come get you and Lizzy before doing anything,” Paul says, folding his arms. Galia scoffs at that too.

“So what other secrets are you two keeping from me?”

“Oh my fucking god, Daud, we’re not-”

“What are you guys arguing about?” Edgar asks, turning away from Lizzy.

Just the sight of him makes Daud’s stomach roil with disgust. “None of your business, fuck off.”

Lizzy rolls her eyes dramatically. “Ignore him. He’s needed a good dick in his ass, like, all day.”

“You fuck off too, Stride.”

She throws him the finger. Out of the corner of his eye, Daud sees Lydia tiptoe to her seat, sitting down and reinserting herself in her novel as quickly as possible.

“What’s your problem?” Galia holds her hands out, speaking at normal volume again.

Daud raises his hands to his temples. “My problem is that everyone here seems to think they’re experts when none of you know what the fuck you’re doing!”

Paul laughs awkwardly. “Well, he’s got us there.”

Galia gives him a dirty look. “No, we know exactly what we’re doing.”

“No.” Daud points. “You are a child. If there was a problem with security, it should have been brought straight to me-”

“Oh, for the Outsider’s ass, I didn’t want to bother you!”

“Why would I be bothered about keeping us all safe?” Daud points to his chest. “That’s my job!”

“Your job,” Thalia Timsh’s cool voice comes from behind. “Is to follow our orders, Daud.”

Daud whirls around. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

Thalia blinks, staring from her seat at the head of the table. “You’re not the Royal Protector anymore. We brought you here to kill certain people. Barring that, you have no obligation and no _authority_ to order around other members of our group.”

“This is none of _your_ damn business.”

“I’m in charge-”

“You are a teenager!” Daud jabs his finger in her direction. “You’d be on your knees scrubbing floors with Rose if your last name wasn’t Timsh!”

You’d think Daud had tried to kill her, from the look of indignation she gives. “How dare you! I may have been born to wealth, but I have still worked-”

“No, your money does all the working! _You_ are a little girl playing pretend, wanting to think you’re more important than you are!”

“I have given _everything_ for this cause-”

“You don’t know anything about this cause! You don’t understand the work I do, you don’t understand what’s at stake-”

“Okay.” There’s a hand gripping his bicep, an arm sliding under us and locking elbows. Lizzy keeps walking without falter, dragging him away. “Let’s go, old man.”

“No, let me go-”

“I _said,”_ She holds tight, turning her head just enough to fix him with her glare. “We’re _going.”_

 

* * *

 

“Where are you taking me?” he asks for the fifteenth time. As expected, Lizzy doesn’t answer him. Daud rolls his eyes, but he walks along, if only because he knows Lizzy would literally drag him if he refused to move his feet.

They exit the mill, and Daud glances up to the orange-colored sky. “If you’re trying to find a place to hide my body, we passed several prime candidates.”

“I’m not going to kill you, as tempting as it is.”

“I’m so relieved.”

“Shut the fuck up, Daud.”

They come to a pause outside Lizzy and Edgar’s bunkhouse. Lizzy releases his arm, and Daud places it on his hip as she fiddles with her keys. “I’m not having sex with you, Stride.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t touch your dick if you paid me.” She pops the door open. “I’m just grabbing something. You can wait here.”

Daud huffs, and he taps his foot as he waits. He could just walk away, sure. Lizzy might be fifteen years younger than him, but it gives her little edge. He could beat her in a struggle. Maybe not easily, but he could.

Lizzy exists after a minute, holding a long, tan whiskey bottle by the neck. Daud’s eyes flicker to it for only a moment before shaking his head.

“No.”

“Too bad, old man.”

“I’m not drinking that! And I’m sure as fuck not talking about my feelings.”

“We’re hashing _something_ out tonight,” Lizzy says with an exaggerated eyeroll. “You’re about to rip someone’s face off. And if Thalia doesn’t have you killed for it, I might just do it myself.”

Daud folds his arms. “I. Don’t. Drink.”

“Then swallow your spit or something, come on.” She turns away. “If you don’t come now, I swear on the Outsider’s frilly underpants that I will roofie your goddamn coffee, tie you up and _make_ you talk to me. Now let’s find someplace to sit.”

Daud continues his bitching, but he follows. They only Blink to get on top of the mall-then they wander, walking on the edges and looking over the district. Lizzy allows Daud to grumble to himself until he’s grumbled himself out. Then she plops down on the edge of the roof, lets her legs dangle over the side and watches the canal.

Daud sits down next to her, peering down the side of the building. “I don’t think heights and alcohol mix very well, Stride.”

Lizzy doesn’t answer. She just stares. So Daud kicks his legs, lets the back of his boots bounce off the brick. He watches the streets, the canal. Watches their world bathed in the orange of dying light.

Finally, Lizzy reaches for the bottle of whiskey. Uncaps it, takes a long drink, then places it between them again without tearing her eyes from the scenery.

“I killed my father.”

Daud blinks. He examines her face for any sign of joking, of anything, but she’s just blank.

“Uh, Old Hat?”

“Of course.” She looks down at her own feet. “I’m not like the Empress. I didn’t have other weird men willing to step in and be my dad. I only had one.”

Daud is quiet for a long moment, though he really feels he shouldn’t be.

Finally, he swallows and clears his throat. “On purpose?”

“Sort of.”

She doesn’t provide an explanation, and Daud doesn’t feel like it’s his place to ask for one. After a minute, she reaches for the whiskey again.

“I used to think my dad was a player,” she starts up again after a sip. “Figured, you know, he was a travelling merchant, sailed all around Tyvia and Morley and then back down here to Dunwall. Figured he must have a kid in every port from Meya to Wynnedown. That one of those ports just happened to be Fraeport. And one of those kids just happened to be me.”

Daud’s read intel reports on Hat. If he had a dozen bastard babies floating around the Isles, someone would have found out about it. Used it. Nobody knew he had a daughter in Morley, true...but it was a lot easier to hide one baby than a dozen.

“I take it that’s not the truth,” he says quietly.

Lizzy shakes her head. “It’s what my ma told me. Should of known better, to take her word for it. Dad was a very...hands-off parent.” She sips thoughtfully. “Never came to visit after I turned six. Sent us money every month, most of which got poured down my ma’s throat, if you get my meaning. But he paid for the apartment we lived in. Paid for the fancy school he demanded I go to.”

He always assumed Lizzy was uneducated. But when Daud thinks about it, what reasons does he have to think that? Because she speaks in a rough manner? Because she has tattoos? Because she looks like an uneducated lower-class woman? All just playing into the same prejudices he railed against when Billie was alive. The thought makes him want to duck into his collar like a turtle.

“Ma never told me any of that.” Lizzy’s fingers find a pebble, and she examines it in displeasure. “She’d give me his letters after she’d fished out all the gold and other crap and never mention it. I mean, he wrote nice letters. Just talked about regular shit, ‘bout school. Called me his ‘little river pearl’. It was dumb, you know, but it was nice dumb. But I was still pissed with him. And even after I met him, even when I knew the whole story, I’d been mad at him so long I really didn’t know how not to be.”

She tosses the pebble out over the street.

“Anyway. We hashed shit out, man-to-man, years went by and we had our own drama-I’m not going to get into all that. I will tell you we had a fight when I left the Navy. We were not on good terms when I started up the Dead Eels.”

“Was he one of Delilah’s supporters or something?” Daud’s lip curls.

Lizzy actually laughs. “No, no, he had no idea how bad it was about to get. He was upset I threw away my career. He was always real proud of that, having a Navy daughter. He didn’t want me taking over his business, getting involved in the whole ‘being a criminal’ thing. I kinda...fucked that, I know.” She drinks again. “You know there was a turf war. I kinda just...let it happen. I was mad, about old shit that happened twenty years ago and new shit that happened then. A lot of people on both sides got killed because I was too prideful to pull my own head out of my ass.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and she sets the bottle aside when she does start talking again. “The Eels were already on its last legs when I got pneumonia. I thought I was a tougher bitch than it and ignored it until I collapsed one day. We couldn’t get a doctor because everyone heard ‘cough’ and thought ‘plague’, so nobody wanted to get close to me. Finally, Edgar decided to cut our losses and jump ship. I mean that literally. He flung me across his shoulder and fucking swam to the dock because he couldn’t figure out how the pulleys worked to get the skiff down. It’s a miracle he didn’t drown me.”

Daud has to suppress a smile at the mental image. Not the ‘Lizzy unconscious’ bit, just Edgar being a dumbass.

“So he comes up to the mall here,” Lizzy straightens herself up. “You know, sopping wet, holding me in his arms like I’m his fucking bride. Yells that he has Elizabeth Hat. So, of course, they let us through.” She rolls her eyes. “He makes up this baked story about how evil Lizzy Stride kidnapped Hat’s daughter and was holding her hostage. Edgar was the subordinate who grew a heart when he saw my plight or whatever, and became a turncoat. Said he killed Lizzy and brought Elizabeth home to her daddy.”

“And the Hatters...believed that?”

“Yuuup. They all knew he had a daughter he was sneaking away to meet, but no one ever saw me. Dad didn’t want anybody knowing my face, ‘specially from the other gangs. But, you know, I still can’t believe they bought it so easily. Dumbasses.”

Daud’s dealt with a lot of gangs in his life, and sadly, he’s not surprised. “Didn’t they recognize you as Lizzy Stride?”

“Apparently I looked like such shit that they didn’t. Anyway.” Lizzy shrugs. “I don’t remember _any_ of this. I had a fever of eleventy fuckbillion degrees and was flopping around, rambling on about purple bunnies cooking crack or some such shit. I didn’t come to for a few more days, after Trimble got my fever down and pumped some fluids in me. Woke up in one of Trimble’s hospital rooms. ‘Course, Dad was sitting in a chair right next to me.”

Of course he was. He must have been out of his mind with worry. Daud doesn’t remember Thomas ever being that sick, but he likely would have been glued to his side if he was. Billie was rarely sick at all-aside from the fever she got when he first met her. He doesn’t know if it was pneumonia or anything-not like he could take her to a doctor. Didn’t have the coin for it, and there was no way to say ‘I found this small girl on the side of the road and she’s not wearing pants because she can’t get up to piss, fix her please’ without someone making assumptions. Possibly calling the Watch. He just kept her covered to help with the chills, tried to bring her fever down with a rag on her forehead. He’d known nothing about her then. Known her for one day. But he could barely sleep, couldn’t bring himself to leave for anything other than getting her elixir. He was desperately terrified that she would die. Could think of nothing else until her fever broke, until she sat up and asked if he was the same creepy old guy from before. Then he could breathe.

Lizzy sips, the orange of the sun reflected in her eyes. “Dad was already old as fuck, but he was actually doing okay at that point. Could get up, move, got winded when he walked more than a few feet so he got pushed around in a wheelchair for the most part, but he was still rocking it. Was sound of mind up ‘till the end.”

Daud’s surprised Hat would even allow himself to be seen in a wheelchair. Especially in the gangs, projecting an image of strength was a necessity. Even the Emperor had pulled out all the stops to conceal his illness. On the occasions he needed to use a cane to walk, he blamed a knee injury or something similar. He hid the handkerchief he coughed into so no one saw the red. Everywhere they went, their security had to section off a room to take him if his blood pressure suddenly dipped and he passed out, and it left Billie to make excuses for his sudden absence more than once. Towards the end, they even started padding his clothes to cover up his rapid weight loss. He was bed-bound for three weeks precluding his death, and the general public had no idea he was even sick until the last few days.

That was how you did things. A leader showing their weakness instigates panic. For a man like Hat, it would mean he needed replacing.

“I was stuck in bed for a few weeks,” Lizzy continues. “Could hardly stand up without getting winded. My fucking nails stopped growing, my hair started falling out-I mean, this haircut is tight as hell, but I only got it shaved because you could see my bald spots. Told you before, I cracked a rib because I managed to fuck up coughing. Through it all, Dad visited me every day. Trimble told him not to. But he did. I got better. Dad...didn’t.”

She stares out at the canal for a long time before knocking back a good portion of the whiskey, swiping the back of her hand over her mouth as she sets the bottle back down.

“I didn’t see Dad for a few days, so when I was allowed out of bed I went to him. He was set up in the room Lydia’s in now-you know, the one by the bathroom. But Trimble had Hatter fucks guarding the door. Wouldn’t let me through to talk to him. Said I was contagious, that he was too weak to handle getting whatever I had. But, you know, I knew. I knew I already gave it to him.

“After a bit, think he got tired of hearing him ask for me, Trimble did let me in, but he wouldn’t let me get close to Dad. He was...hooked up to this machine, a tube right through his chest. Dad couldn’t talk real loud, couldn’t get enough air, so he’d whisper in Trimble’s ear and he’d talk. Fuck if I know if any of it was Dad’s actual words. I finally just told him he should get out, let me spend some time with my father, because clearly he was already dying. Trimble just laughed at me. Said Dad wasn’t going to die on his watch.”

Lizzy drinks some more. Daud pushes down the discomfort that bubbles in his chest. He knows Trimble is a weasel-knows he’s probably never spoken a truthful word in his life. But this just seems...evil.

The Emperor had asked for Billie the night before he died. Daud waited outside his room. Everyone waited, his advisors and doctors and Royal Protector. Billie and her father talked for over an hour, and no one dared interrupt them. When she emerged, her eyes were red and she smelled like the antiseptic the nurses all but scrubbed the floor with. She never told Daud about what was said in there. He never asked. Some things were private-sacred. He couldn’t dream of depriving her-either of them-of that.

He never got that with her. Never got to say goodbye, to say all the things he was never able to say before. He’ll never get that back.

Lizzy takes a swipe at her eyes, sniffs before continuing. “Then...one day, Trimble had to leave for a few hours. I snuck in to see Dad. It was...fuck, it was awful. Just skin and bones. Didn’t even sound like himself when he talked, and every time he coughed it was like someone punched him and knocked all the wind out of his chest.”

She runs her finger around the rim of the whiskey bottle, staring at one particular streetlamp intently.

“We sat, talked for a bit. Told him not to feel like he’s leaving shit unfinished, that I forgave him for all his bullshit. He laughed and asked if I was forgiving him because he’d earned it or because he was dying, and I said a little of both. He said he was sorry again, for leaving me with my ma. Told me I was the only thing he’d ever created in his life that he didn’t regret. That he was proud of me. Then he…” She pauses, sucks in a deep breath. “He asked me to turn off the machine that kept him breathing.”

Daud is absolutely silent. Lizzy takes a long, shuddering breath of air.

“Of course I couldn’t say no,” she says, as if answering a question Daud never posed. “But how can anybody say yes to that?”

They sit in silence for another minute. Lizzy takes another swig of whiskey.

“I, you know, asked if he was sure. He said he’d never been so sure of anything in his life. He understood if I didn’t want to be the one to do it, but to run and get Edgar or somebody quick before Trimble came back. He just asked that I stay with him.” She shakes her head. “But fuck if I was...ugh. No, I don’t make it a habit to paw my dirty work off on other people. And nobody fucking sees me cry.”

Apparently Daud factors into ‘nobody’ now, as there’s water visible in Lizzy’s eyes. She wipes one with her sleeve, and a single tear falls from her other eye, leaving a trail of wetness down her cheek.

“So I...did it. The machine was powered by whale oil, like everything else in this fucking city, so I just had to take out the tank and wait a few minutes. I went back. Held Dad’s hand. And we just waited.” She closes her eyes and swallows, slowly. “Right before he died, he looked me in the eye and told me he loved me. We didn’t say that shit to each other. He never said it until it was his last words. And you know what I said back? ‘I know.’ That’s what I said. That’s _all_ I said.”

“He knew,” Daud says quietly. “You wouldn’t have stayed if you didn’t.”

“I could have said it for a dying man,” Lizzy says angrily, more tears falling down her cheeks and lingering on the curve of her jaw. “For one minute, I could have swallowed my fucking pride and told him so. I didn’t have to be Lizzy Stride, you know. I could have just been Lizzy.” She shakes her head. “But I guess you’re right. Maybe he did know. Dad died with a smile on his face.”

Daud keeps his eyes focuses on his hands, folded neatly into his lap. Lizzy sets the bottle aside again. They sit. They watch the shadows creep steadily up the sides of the building. They don’t talk. They just sit.

Then Lizzy turns to him, rubbing her finger under her nose. “Now,” she says through a sniff. “Your turn.”

Daud raises his eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve never told anyone about all that. Not even Edgar. Nobody but you, now.” She pokes him in the side. “So now you owe me.”

“I never asked you to share any of that.”

“No, I _wanted_ to tell you.” She jabs him harder. “Because we’re like that. We get each other. And neither of us are gonna run off and tell everybody else how we blubbered like little babies. So you don’t have to be scared to tell me shit, because I get it.”

Daud shakes his head. “I’ve never been ‘scared’ of you, Stride. I just don’t like talking-”

“Oh, Daud, fuck off.” Lizzy rolls her eyes. “You _want_ to talk about her. I can tell, okay, you like to think your all mysterious and shit but I can read your face like an open book. I know because _I do the same fucking shit._ You can’t fool me.”

“No offense, but none of my bullshit is any of your business. It’s private stuff-stuff I talk about with Thomas.”

“I talk to Thomas too. So I know you don’t talk about the shit you need to talk about.”

“Lizzy…” Daud tips his head back and groans. “Why can’t you people just let me do my job and leave me alone?”

“Because we care about you too, old man. Not just the job you do.”

Daud presses his lips together. Lizzy shoves the bottle of whiskey into his hands.

“Tell me something about her I wouldn’t know,” she presses. “Just something small-something stupid.”

“Something stupid.”

“Nothing scandalous, just something from the dumb side of life. You know, the shit she didn’t show off to the public. Just tell me one thing.”

Daud raises the bottle to his lips and takes a sip. It tastes just like he remembers it. Like rancid piss that burns in his mouth and leaves a smarting sourness in his mouth. Not at all thirst-quenching. He’ll never understand how anyone found this refreshing.

“When she found out she was going to be Empress,” he says carefully, the corners of his mouth twitching up despite himself. “She fainted.”

“When her dad died?” Lizzy cocks her head. “Wait, are we talking actual fainting, or just the swooning rich ladies do when their bras are too tight?”

“Corsets, that’s when they can’t breathe right.” Billie let herself be laced up in one of those rib-crushing devices exactly once, nearly running herself out of breath with every three steps she took. Afterwards, she’d hold in all her breath while getting laced up to give her ample room to breathe, until an attendant bitched to the Emperor about it. Then she flat-out refused to wear one. Daud shakes his head. “No, actually fainted. I had to catch her. She was out cold for about a minute. This was the day we met the Emperor-he was kind of freaking out that she did that. They sprung a lot on her with no warning.”

“I always wondered, how did that even go? Did they just walk up to her on the street and go ‘you’re the Emperor’s daughter and you’re coming with us’? Because no matter which way you spin it, it sounds fishy.”

“If they had approached her like that,” Daud says sourly. “She would have yelled for me. I wouldn’t have let them take her.”

“Good, because that screams of a scam. One that ends with her bones going up for sale on the black market.”

Daud shakes his head. “They weren’t _that_ much more tactful.” He tips his head back. “I first knew something was up when some people we knew took me aside and said that a group of uniformed men had been asking after her.”

Some people actually liked him back then. Or really, they liked his streetrats. While Billie could be a brat, she was very cute in a mischievous way-people loved the snaggletooth. Thomas wasn’t well-behaved by a long shot, but he was charming and a generally pretty child. The people who gave them the time of day also eased up around Daud, enough to make small talk. Enough to approach him and tell him their worries.

Keep that little girl safe, they said. Keep her safe.

“Oh yeah, that’s not ominous as fuck.” Lizzy snorts. “You were probably shitting your pants.”

Oh, he was. He had no idea the men were Spymaster agents at the time-though the revelation that they were didn’t make him feel any better. Daud thought they from a gang. And that greatly unnerved him. The illicit of Dunwall had plenty of uses for children, sure. Billie was a talented pickpocket and good with a knife, both things that would attract some unsavory characters. She was a girl, which started mattering more when it came to sex work at her age. There were definitely people interested in using her. Fuck, some guy had offered Daud a purse full of coin to ‘take her off his hands’, heavily implying he was going to sell her to a brothel. He _knew_ there were always people with eyes on her.

But they all fucked off when Daud inserted himself next to her, showed off his sword and the side of his face. ‘Owning’ Billie might have been lucrative, but she wasn’t worth tangling with a guy like him. There were always other little girls. Ones that didn’t have Daud standing behind them. So the fact that these men were expending this much time and energy seeking out one girl, a girl who had a big, dangerous man ready to draw blood in order to protect her, had chilling implications.

Really, Daud thought it was about him. He’d pissed off tons of people in his life-made plenty of enemies across the gangs of Dunwall. He moved around enough that he wasn’t easily tracked, but he wondered if one of them saw her with Daud. If she was being targeted in some sort of revenge plot against _him._ There was no other reason for anyone to want to get their hands on her that bad. He didn’t show it at the time, pretended he was just annoyed, but Daud was _terrified._

“I just moved us to another district at first,” he continues carefully. “But then it started happening again, and I knew it wasn’t going to just go away. I decided we had to leave Dunwall.”

“Where to? Back home to Serkonos?”

“Maybe.” His mother wouldn’t still be there. It wasn’t home. But the cost of living was lower. Cheap schools to send Thomas to, and Billie could have gotten an apprenticeship at the docks when she got a bit older. They could have made it. “It would have come down to where I could secure passage for three people cheaply and...discreetly.”

“That wouldn’t of, you know, stopped the freaking Spymaster. They’d of tracked you guys to Pandyssia if they needed to.”

“I know. Didn’t end up mattering. Planned to be out of the city by the end of the week-I hadn’t even told the kids we were moving, didn’t want Thomas blabbing about it. Literally two days before we were going to leave, we got woken up at five in the morning to some assholes trying to pound down the front door.”

“...This is _really_ sounding like one of those horror stories where you guys’s organs get harvested for auction.”

Daud takes another swig of whiskey, grimacing. “They tried to leave with her. Didn’t tell us what was going on or what they wanted with her, just said she was coming with them. I said over my dead body.”

“Tempting fate there, buddy.”

“Decided I wasn’t worth the bullet, I guess. They-” He swallows. “We got put up in this fancy-ass hotel. Kept us fed, one of the maids went out and bought some toys to keep Thomas entertained. He thought it was all a damn vacation, at least, but Billie and I knew better. They had armed guards stationed out in the hallway.”

“See, I woulda just jumped out the window.”

“We were high up. And Thomas and I could leave whenever we wanted-it was just Billie they wouldn’t let go.” He glares at a streetlamp. “They brought in these idiot nerds to talk to Billie a few times. Weird stuff, about her birth mother and her childhood. Drew her blood. She-” Daud pauses to suppress the smile that wells up on his lip. “I think she made it a game to see how fast she could annoy them. She was a goddamn brat.”

“What in the fuck did you make of all of this?”

“Not the truth.”

“Well, obviously, _nobody_ would of guessed the truth. But what did you _think?”_

He shrugs. “I really didn’t know what to think. I kind of...tried not to think about any of it.”

Helpless. He was utterly helpless and he knew it. Couldn’t leave with Billie, wouldn’t leave _without_ Billie. No choice but to hand her over, watch them prod at her and hope to the fucking Outsider they wouldn’t hurt her, because Daud talked big and acted tough but he was powerless against a team of Spymaster agents. Oh, he could fight them, even kill a few before his life ended in a hail of bullets, and he’d do it for her but Thomas was with him and he could not let Thomas get hurt too. They had him by the balls, completely at their mercy and Daud felt as helpless as he was when the Actor first took control of him.

He couldn’t protect her. And he hated it. He hated everything and he didn’t want to think about what was going on at all, but there was nothing to do in that hotel room but dwell and think and _worry._

“I guess…” Daud taps his lip.“I don’t know, I guess the best I came up with was that this was some weird underground sex ring we were getting suckered into.”

“That’s...specific.”

_“Everything_ has a sex ring component to it, Stride.”

“If you say so.”

“No, really. All organized crime dips into the sex trade. Drug trafficking? Somebody’s getting paid in whores, and another somebody is probably murdering them. Tax fraud? Nine times out of ten, covering up an illegal sex ring. Embezzlement? Child sex ring. I don’t-” He raises his hands to his temples. “I don’t _get_ it. I’m a criminal. I never fucked kids. Why does every crime have to have a sex aspect? Why are people so obsessed-why are you laughing at me?”

Lizzy attempts to stop her giggles. “Sorry, I’m not...it’s not funny, I know, just, the way you said…” She covers her mouth with her hand. “Sorry. Go on.”

“See, that’s why I never told anyone about that.” Daud says sourly. “But Billie would probably laugh too. She thought her mother got arrested or something. I don’t know _why_ anyone would have involved Billie in that.”

“Makes more sense than your explanation.”

“It does not, and you know it.”

_“Anyway._ So what’d they finally say to you?”

“That’s the thing. They didn’t _tell_ us anything.” Daud gripes the neck of the whiskey bottle as he stares into the distance. “I’d been asking what we were doing there for six days at this point, and nobody answered me. I was just told I wasn’t allowed to know, that nobody had clearance to divulge that information. The Emperor showed up in his carriage that morning and I honestly thought it was a coincidence.

“Then one of the agents came up and told us we had to go. His Majesty was waiting for us. Billie-I don’t know how she got it in her head, but she thought they were going to kill her. She started freaking out.”

“Well, what else do you think?” Lizzy muses. “Was she supposed to guess she was the Emperor’s daughter all by herself?”

Maybe they did expect her to think that. Daud thought himself an idiot for a long time, for not guessing, when it seemed so very clear in retrospect. At the time, he thought she was being sold off to him for some reason. It was the only explanation he could come up with. It was the only thing that _fit_ within the grand theme of their lives.

“The guy told us the Emperor was here to meet his daughter. I actually told him to go have breakfast with her, and leave Billie alone.” Lizzy snorts at that. “Then he...corrected me. I wasn’t really thinking much in the way of coherent thoughts after that.”

He remembers the moments afterwards, of course. But his memories were odd, like moving underwater, snapshots taken through his eyes. Being led down to the main hall, holding Thomas’s hand to keep him from running forward and gripping onto Billie’s skirt. The Emperor standing there, talking with his Royal Protector and Spymaster Martin. Them going quiet, his face going blank when he turned to see Billie descending those steps. How they stared at each other, the Emperor in mottled confusion, and Billie in wide-eyed apprehension. And finally Billie executing the clumsiest curtsy he’d ever seen, so low the hem of her dress nearly touched the floor. Only then did the glass break, and the Emperor bowed back. Took her hand and kissed it.

The anger was enough to snap Daud out of whatever trance he was in.

“They met, and we all sat down to breakfast to get acquainted or some shit.” Daud plucks a cigarette from his pocket, slides his lighter out. He needs a fucking smoke to talk about this man. “I’ll spare you the vexing details of that meal.”

“No, this sounds hilarious.”

“The only funny part was Billie trying to act like she knew how to use a fork like a rich person.” Really, they should have been impressed that she knew how to eat with a fork in the first place. Thomas hadn’t even used silverware before that week and Daud spent half the meal trying to help him figure out his plethora of cutlery. “They ignored me for the most part, played happy family. He, the Emperor, got very angry when he found out I’d taught Billie how to fight.”

“He was mad that you taught her to defend herself?”

“Looked like he was about to faint when I said I showed her how to shoot a gun. I told him he’d have a very pretty corpse for a daughter if I hadn’t. Just brushed me off.”

“Fucking rich folk,” Lizzy says sourly. “Feel so secure in their castles, can’t see why everyone don’t live in ‘em.” She sits up straighter. “So wait, you knew who she was then. Why was she so shocked that she would succeed him? Feel like that would kinda be a given.”

“I don’t think she was really...you know, thinking about it too hard. She was already overwhelmed.” He takes another puff, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. “I figured he must have had a bunch of bastard kids. That he was just being decent and providing for his damn spawn. After we finished eating, man offers me, there wasn’t really a concrete number stated, but he offered me a very substantial reward. I thought it was meant to, you know, take care of her. But then he started talking about a carriage coming to pick her up. About hiring tutors and buying her a new wardrobe. He was taking her with. And Billie didn’t want to go.”

He acted like it was obvious. She was his daughter, of course she’d come live with him! In his mind, she had no reason not to be ecstatic. He couldn’t understand how that might have scared her. Couldn’t understand that she might react in a way he didn’t predict. That Billie was a person, not his doll.

“I wouldn’t fucking want to either. He was a fucking stranger to her.”

Daud takes another drag. “He told her she had to, that she had responsibilities. She had to go, she had to live at the Tower and learn how to be a princess because she was his heir. She’d be Empress. And she fainted.”

Of course she fucking fainted. Three hours before, she had been a street kid. The daughter of a drunk, wore rags and ate out of the trash and was spat on by the very citizens who were supposed to revere her. How was she supposed to reconcile that?

Daud might have passed out himself if his every instinct hadn’t screamed to catch her before she cracked her skull open on the white marble. He doesn’t think he really absorbed it until then, understood the true gravity of their situation. That Billie was Crown Princess of the Empire. That he was holding the future Empress of the Isles in his arms.

“Geeze.” Lizzy shakes her head. “I would of too, honestly. You think they could of broke that a little bit more gently.”

“They said there was a communication error,” Daud says sourly. “Someone was _supposed_ to have briefed us, but the task was never assigned to anyone. There was no error. They just didn’t give a shit what we thought.”

“Well, they must of, at least a little bit. They let her keep you.”

“No.” Daud glares at a streetlamp intently. “No, her father hated me. He wanted her to cut contact with us. Even after Billie told him Thomas was her brother, he didn’t want us having any contact with her. She had to beg.” She had to _lie,_ he thinks. “He wouldn’t have allowed it if it weren’t for Thomas, trust me. I don’t think the Emperor had it in him to separate the two of them.”

“Thomas _is_ completely adorable.” Lizzy nods to herself. “One of those faces you just can’t say no to.”

Well, Daud had plenty of practice doing that, but the Emperor never did. He never said no to Thomas either, now that Daud thinks of it. Thomas got whatever he asked for, and it was on Daud to step in and be the bad guy, tell him he couldn’t eat cake for breakfast or have that new-fangled toy until he donated some of the toys he never played with. It was an easy way to appease children. And living in a palace where everything was taken care of by others, saying ‘yes’ required no effort on the Emperor’s part. An easy way to get Thomas to shut up and stay the hell away from him.

“Even after we moved in, he was always trying to get me out of the way. He argued with Billie when she named me her Royal Protector,” Daud continues. “He said she’d never be respected if she picked me, that one of the Elite officers, a boy from a good family, would be a better choice. He put me through the wringer in training. Picked on every mistake I made, downplayed every duel I won. Kept trying to convince her to change her mind.”

This _was_ right after Jessamine Kaldwin was murdered, so in retrospect, maybe it made sense to be so critical. A Serkonan peasant serving as a bodyguard, even he can see the parallels the Emperor might have drawn. But...still.

“I mean, he had a bit of a point,” Lizzy says carelessly. “People didn’t like her right from the get-go. May not be fair, but it is what it is. Choosing the right bodyguard, getting on the nobles’ good side, isn’t that how the game is played?”

“It wasn’t a _game!_ It was her goddamn safety!” Daud throws a loose piece of rubble over the canal. “Outsider’s eyes, I swear I was the only person who fucking cared about any of that half the time. It was all about appearances and security theater. You know, I redesigned all the patrols around the Tower. I created a special training program specifically for the guards stationed there. I’m the one who had new locks installed on all the windows, who insisted on training her to defend herself, because I was the one who knew how assassins think! Everyone else was too full of their bullshit to see past their own noses, to remember that this was about protecting her!”

Daud stops short. He huffs. And huffs some more, glaring angrily in the direction of the Tower, hidden behind buildings and district walls.

Lizzy stares at him with her an indescribable, gentle sadness in her eyes. “You cared about her a lot,” she says quietly.

Daud slumps, and stares at the street below. “I’d...be dead if it weren’t for Billie,” he says quietly. “The way I was going, right before I met her, that would have seen me dead before I saw thirty-five. And it was a shitty life. I had no real goals beyond scraping together enough coin for cigarettes, beyond just surviving another day.”

Sometimes that’s all you really can do, his mother’s voice echoes in the empty spaces of his mind. Survive because you have to, and someday you can live because you want to. Daud did everything he could to make himself like living, make it all feel worth it. He slipped coin under the doors of people he heard were having trouble, stole bread and produce from street vendors and distributed them to mudlarks, stepped in and stopped more than his fair share of assaults. But it all felt empty. And Daud thought that maybe the reason he wandered was because he was looking for something.

“Billie sort of fell into my lap, and...well, someone had to take care of her.” He shrugs. “Having her around was the kick in the ass I needed to get my shit together. I stopped doing the risky shit. Started talking to people more-people _love_ talking about kids. I even fought differently. I took care of myself better because she needed me around, and I wanted to be around for her. It was the same way with Thomas, but Billie was...first. It wouldn’t have happened without her. I wouldn’t have been here.”

They sit in quiet for a long time, bathed in the last embers of the dying sunlight. They watch the canal. Listen to the creaks of the crumbling buildings.

“You must miss her so much,” Lizzy says softly, a catch in her voice.

Daud hangs his head. “I wasn’t supposed to outlive her.”

“But you did. And you want to undo all the hard work she did fixing you up?” Lizzy shakes her head.

“I was only a better person because of her.”

“She’s gone, Daud, but she still existed. Acting like all that shit she did could just be erased like that, you’re acting like what she did didn’t matter. You know she would want you to keep being that better person.”

“I…” Daud leans forward and buries his face in his hands. “I know,” he says. “But I don’t...know how to _do_ that, not without her. How am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to do _any_ of this without her?”

Like an answer, Lizzy holds up the bottle.

 

* * *

 

“Billie was always trying to be better,” Daud rambles. “To be best. Told her. She pushed herself, pushed too much. Told her she didn’t have any... _nothing_ to prove.”

“Hmm.” Lizzy leans back and tips more whiskey into her mouth. “She did, though. Homegirl in a man’s world. The dick was stacked...stocked? Everyone was aaaall against her, that’s all.”

Daud tries to nod, but it turns out to be a lot of work. “She was better than them,” he mumbles. “Why should she…she need to impress them? Bunch of im...im-ba...dumb fuckers.”

Lizzy’s hand finds his shoulder, and she smacks it twice before curling her fingers over the top. “Ya know, what you said, ‘bout Thalia? Don’t _‘hiccup’_ tell ‘er I said so, but you was right.” She tips her head back to look at the stars. “You was _so_ right. The rich fucks, they don’t do _nothin’._ I hate ‘em all, ‘cept you and your boy.”

Daud can’t really see the stars, even leaning back to look up at the sky. They move around like flies in a cup. That didn’t seem right, somehow.

“Billie wasn’t like...like that. Not like them. She cared.” He shakes his head, but it comes off more like nodding sideways. “Why she didn’t...see that? How’d she not know she was better than all them?”

“‘Cause they _told_ her she weren’t good enough. Bunch o’ _liii_ ars. Stupid heads.”

“And the thing is…” Daud’s hand paws at Lizzy’s back to find her shoulder. “She was always trying to impress _me_ too. Why’d she do that? She was better than me too.”

“Don’t _‘hiccup’_ go thinkin’ that trash.”

“I suck.”

“No, you ain’t.” Lizzy paws at his arm, forcing him to look at her. “You’re so _fucking_ good, Daud. You a cool witch. An’ you an _awesome_ dad. I wanna be like you when I’m all growed up.”

“I don’t want you...want you _anything_ like me. You hear me, Stride?” He holds a finger to her nose and ends up poking her cheek. “Nothing like that. You’re better than me.”

“Ya don’t know me.”

“Fuck off, I know you,” he says, clawing for her hand. “And if the Out....if that _bastard_ so much as looks at you, I will fucking fistfight him.”

“Chaaaarming.” Lizzy dips forward, hands at his chest, then pulls herself back. “Did it...I wadn’t gonna kiss you, sorry.” She tips her head back and laughs, holding one finger up. “Ya know, when I’ma _drunk,_ I always wanna _‘hiccup’_  kiss people. Like, kiss _evrybody._ But you? I don’t wanna kiss you. No offense.”

“I don’t want...want to kiss you either.” Somehow his hand is on her thigh now, so Daud moves it off. “You know, Trimble thinks I’m fu...fucking you.”

“He’s, uh, producting? Naw, _projecting._ Cause he wants to tap this.” She smacks the side of her pant leg.

“Is not...not you.” He points at her chest. “I don’t like it. Like any of it. Not with you, but no one.”

Lizzy cocks her head. “Like, none of it? Not just kissing?”

“No.” He blinks, trying to focus on one lamppost, but it quickly becomes two and he gives up. “Is that weird?”

“A little,” Lizzy admits.

“I don’t want…” Daud presses his lips together in frustration with his non-compliant tongue. “I don’t _hate_ it. I’ve had sex before.”

“Of courzzz. You made Thomas.”

“It wasn’t _bad._ I liked it enough. Just didn’t like it enough to go again.” His fingers tap against the masonry. “Liked it even though I remembered things. They were always real nice, though. Patient. ‘Cept for one, but I asked him not to be.”

“You…” Lizzy squints at him. “‘Membered what?”

“Just…” He waggles his fingers. “Just stuff, you know?”

“Like what?”

_“Nothing.”_ Daud shakes his head. Why is she asking questions? He wouldn’t have said anything if he knew she’d ask questions.

“No, Daud…” Lizzy moves her hand over, feels around for his. “Tell me.”

He pulls his hand away. “No...you think I’m weird.”

“No, said _it’s_ weird. Nothin’ wrong with _you.”_

“Says who?” Daud stares down at the canal. “Maybe there is something wrong with me. Maybe I’ve been ruined. Can’t think of why else...why it’d just be me.”

“S’ _not_ just you. There be others…” She grumbles. “I prove it. Show you.”

Daud shakes his head. “And people said I did that to her,” he says, turning back to Lizzy. “That I fucked Billie. I wouldn’t hurt her like that! Wouldn’t...not _anyone_ like that.”

Lizzy nods and passes him the bottle. “Last bit goes to you. Get that back there, boy.”

Daud tips his head entirely back, almost falling over, to get the last of the whiskey at the bottom of the bottle. He stopped tasting the swill about an hour ago-has it been an hour? He has no clue how time works right now. He just knows it’s dark, been dark for...a while.

“I couldn’t hurt her,” he repeats, setting the empty bottle back down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Did I act...act like I would? Like I was evil? Why’d they all think I did?”

“Told ya, it’s pro-deck-shion.”

“I should of left.” Daud shakes his head. “Should of taken her away from Dunwall. They all suck. No one here deserved her.”

“Don’t think _‘hiccup’_ her dad would of let you.”

“I don’t _fucking_ care. Should of _cared_ more about her life,” he rants. “Should of cared sooner. Should of taken her, hid her somewhere.”

“You know.” Lizzy picks up the empty bottle only to look marginally confused at it for a moment. “Dad, he tried to do something like, like that. My dad tried to kidnap me once.”

“From you mom?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She nods, her eyes half-closed. “When I was just a lil sprout. His boat-”

A door bangs open. Daud and Lizzy both freeze, barely breathing like that could give them away. The light comes from below them. Daud blinks a few times before he sees Jerome step out with a torch in hand, and he realizes that they’ve been sitting right above their front door.

Jerome steps forward a few feet, swinging it back and forth. Lizzy chucks their empty whiskey bottle in his vague direction, and Jerome nearly jumps out of his skin when it crashes on the asphalt.

“Hey, loooser!” Lizzy waves both her arms. Jerome jerks the beam upwards.

“What the _fuck_ are you two doing up there?!” he yells. “How did you even _get_ up on the roof?!”

“Got maaaad skills, baby!”

“Are you drunk? You know what, never mind. Just get off the roof, you’re scaring Eugene!”

With that, Jerome turns back around. The front door slams a second later. Daud scoots his butt back from the side of the building. “Come on. Should prob...should go to bed,” he mumbles.

“Yeah. Fuck, gonna feel this in the morning…” Lizzy tries to push herself up and get her legs under her, but one of her feet slips and she goes down. Daud almost throws himself over the edge to catch her, but she reappears next to him in a whiff of black smoke. She reaches out either to keep Daud from falling off himself or to restabilize herself. They end up grabbing at each other, swaying back and forth.

“Whoa...oh, that izzent fun while drunks…”

“I _told_ you,” Daud slurs. “I _told_ you we shouldn’t be...high...ugh.”

“I get it.” Lizzy pats his back. “Get it, old man. Get you.”

Daud grabs onto her to Blink down from the roof when they reach the other side of the mall, and Lizzy is right, it _isn’t_ fun. The ground seems to spin in an impossible way and he has no idea where to put his feet. He keeps his arms wrapped around Lizzy’s midsection as they walk, mostly because he forgets to take them off.

Lizzy unpeels herself from him when they get to her door, hands rooting in her pockets for her keys. Daud braces himself against the wall with one hand and watches. She finally produces her keys, fumbles with them for a moment trying to select the right one, and they finally slip from her fingers.

“Fuck,” she breathes, leaning down to grab them. She can’t even bend halfway before her feet are making dizzy dances, her arms out to steady herself. Daud would pick them up for her, but he...doesn’t really think he can bend down either. Not and get back up, at least.

Lizzy finally accepts defeat, and lays against the door. “Edgaaaaar,” she whines, slapping the metal panel. “Edgar, let me iiiiiin.”

“What’s the magic password?” A singsong voice comes from inside.

“I will eat your ffff- _fucking_ eyes if you don’t open for me.”

“Nope!”

“Edgar, let her in or you’ll have _me_ to deal with,” Daud yells, with only slightly less slurring.

The door swings open and Edgar catches Lizzy in a practiced, smooth motion, turning to glare at Daud. “You were drinking with _him_ all night?!”

Lizzy wavers as she pulls away, tries to stand on her own. “You _shaw_ me leave with him.”

“I thought you were gonna beat the crap out of him.”

“Nah, Daud ain’t into that shit. I only ssssspank people who ask.” She waves in his direction, her eyes already closing. “Nightie-night, old man.”

“Night.”

Edgar glares at him once more before slamming their door shut. Daud stands there for a minute, staring at the dirt beneath his boots and trying to collect himself.

Okay. He can do this. He can walk over to the mill, not fall into the canal that has no safety guardrails, and make it up the bazillion stairs to his bed. That number didn’t seem right. Only, like...three flights, he thinks. How many stairs does he have to combat?

He’s over-thinking this. He just needs to go. Daud pushes himself away from the wall.

The ground is more uneven than he remembers. He thinks it’s just the terrain, but then his footsteps make loud clanging noises and he knows he’s walking on the metal grating. Each foot seems to go exactly where he doesn’t intend it to go, and Daud has to hold his arms out to keep from falling on his face. One foot in front, then the other foot, that’s wrong isn’t it? One foot has to be in back. That’s just math. Nope, bad mantra. Right foot, left foot. Better. Right foot, left foot. Right foot, nope, too much. He has to wave his arms to keep from tipping sideways into the canal. That wouldn’t be good. The water wheel would crush him.

He gets through the warehouse fairly easily, all things considered, barring his boot toe getting caught in the floor grates once or twice. The stairs pose another challenge. Daud finds he can climb if he takes them one at a time. Step up once, move his other foot to join it. Plant both feet firmly on the step and reassure his grip on the railing before attempting another one.

It takes forever. But he’s slowly making progress. He hears chatter from the main hall, and he hopes to the Void that nobody turns and sees him, because Daud highly doubts he can make conversation and act normal without revealing how completely sloshed he is.

Rounds the corner. Okay, they can’t see him anymore. One foot, two. He wavers. Grips the railing and goes again.

He’s on the last flight of stairs before his foot glances off the edge of the step, and slips. He stumbles and his other leg gives up. Daud pitches forward and tries to catch his fall, ends up smashing himself in the teeth. He slides down the last few steps of progress, banging his chin on every step along the way.

He stops when his boots meet the landing. Okay, this actually wasn’t such a bad place to sleep. He can just turn his head, rest his cheek on this step. Nobody uses this staircase except for him, so he won’t be tripping anybody up. This is fine. Daud closes his eyes.

His door opens.

“Oh my-Daud! Are you okay?!”

Right. He forgot about the kids.

Thomas bangs down the stairs, kneeling down next to Daud’s head. “Are you hurt?” he asks, his fingers at Daud’s temple. “Did you fall?”

“M’fine,” Daud mumbles, reaching up to ruffle Thomas’s hair. He misses his head, however, and ends up awkwardly petting the air next to his ear.

“Did Daud fall down the stairs?” Rose’s voice comes from the top of the steps. “Sounded like it.”

“Is he hurt?” Vasco calls as he descends the steps after Thomas.

“I don’t know, I’m trying to ask him!” Thomas hisses.

Daud’s hand finds Thomas’s cheek. “It’s good,” he nods, barely able to keep his eyes open.

Thomas’s are wide with concern, and he presses a hand to Daud’s own cheek. “You fell.”

“Just a...a bit.” He tries lifting his head, and his neck lolls to the side. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. No, don’t move your head! Just sit here for a second, we’ll look at you.”

“It’s good. Quit your…” He swallows. “Quit your worrying.”

“Daud.” Thomas blinks. “Are...are you _drunk?”_

Daud tries to lift his eyelids a little more.

“I’m fine,” he repeats.

He blinks, and then there’s three kids above him, Thomas, Rose, and Vasco with the tops of their heads touching as they stare down at him in concern.

“Well, I don’t think he’s concussed,” Vasco says. “Just drunk.”

“But Daud doesn’t drink!” Thomas squeaks as they all pull away. “He _never_ drinks!”

“Thomas, think of all that’s happened in the last couple months, and tell me the man has no reason to drink,” Rose says dryly.

“No, he totally has reason, but this isn’t like him! I’m not lying, I’ve seen him drink _twice_ in my life, and once was because Billie spiked his coffee!”

“You were in on that…” Daud says lazily.

Rose gestures to him. “See? He’s parentally judging you. He’s fine.”

“He’s not! Daud doesn’t like alcohol!”

“Daud, have you been drinking?” Vasco stares at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeesh.”

“See?” Vasco points. “He even says he’s been drinking.”

“My question wasn’t whether he was drunk, it’s _why_ he’s drunk.”

“Because he’s a grown-ass man and can drink a pint if he feels like it. Now come on.” Rose squats down. “Let’s get him into bed.”

“Oh, no no no.” Vasco shoos them both away. “I got this.”

“Uh. You do?”

“You sure about that?”

“Well, _you_ have one arm, and _you_ aren’t allowed to pick anything heavy up, so it’s on me!”

“I physically have two arms,” Thomas states, raising one. Rose shakes her head and folds hers.

“Just let him throw out his back.”

“I _got_ this,” Vasco states, then slips one arm under Daud’s armpit. He pulls, and Daud does try to move with him...but it doesn’t seem to help too much. “Okay.” Vasco’s voice breaks. “Maybe I don’t got this.”

Rose rolls her eyes and steps past him. “Hey, who all’s down there? Can somebody give us a hand?”

“I’m _fine,”_ Daud restates, resting the back of his head against the step. “Can sleep...sleep here.”

“Daud, do you hear yourself?” Thomas gestures angrily. “You’re going to lay on the stairs all night because you’re too drunk to make it up them?”

His necks lolls back. “Uh-huh.”

“No!”

“Thomas, calm down.” Vasco leans in, speaking quietly. “Cut your dad some slack, okay?”

“He’s…” And Thomas just presses his lips together and glares at the paneling in the wall.

“Somebody call me?” Paul comes jogging up the stairs. “No, wait, does the fine lady need my assistance?”

“Well, Daud’s the one who needs help, but I guess that still fits.” Rose shrugs. “Can you carry him up to bed?”

“I don’t need to…” Daud raises a finger, nearly batting himself in the face as it comes back down. “I can _walk._ Don’t need... _carrying.”_

“Wow.” Paul blinks at him. “You are one toasted fucker.”

“This isn’t like him.” Thomas motions before wrapping his arms around his stomach. “He doesn’t drink. Ever.”

“Well, I used to ‘not drink’ too. Until I did.” Paul leans down and pulls one of Daud’s arms over his shoulders. “Come on, big guy. Think you can move your legs if I get you up?”

“Up...where? _”_

“Right, right.” He wraps one arm around Daud’s waist and pulls. “Holy...fuck.”

“I know, he’s heavy! Which makes sense, you know, he’s pure muscle.”

Rose chuckles to herself. “That’s why we got Paul. Serkonos’s main export is apparently men with rippling back muscles and pecs you could hold a coin between.”

“Except me?”

“Your parents are Tyvian. You don’t count.”

Paul shuffles up the steps, giving Daud the time for his feet to find the steps and plant his boot firmly before taking the next. “Rosie, didn’t your brother have that story about me sprouting wings and flying away with this guy?” He grunts. “Yeah, I could not deadlift him. Don’t think anything could _fly.”_

“You should,” Daud slurs. “I gave you…”

“Yeah, yeah, your sparring sessions are great, but it’s gonna be a long while until I’m as strong as you.”

“Mmm.” Daud turns his head, dipping his nose until it meets the fabric of Paul’s shoulder. “You should bleach your hair,” he mumbles. “You’d look good blond.”

“You’re kinda biased, but I’ll take it into consideration.”

How is he...oh. Well, he wasn’t even thinking about Thomas’s hair. Daud generally likes dark hair better.

“Vaz? You coming up?” He hears Rose ask.

“Yeah, I’m just...keeping an eye on them. You know, making sure Daud doesn’t fall.”

“Riiiight.”

Paul deposits him on his bed, and Daud immediately flops on his back, nearly banging his head on the bedpost. He stares up at the ceiling, only vaguely aware of someone tugging on his boots.

“Yeah, there’s no way we’re getting his coat off…”

“That’s fine.” Vasco appears in his peripheral vision. “Can you help me get him on his side?”

“Can do.”

There’s some pushing and pulling with his arms and shoulders, but Daud mainly just watches Vasco’s intense, serious face. He looks completely different when he’s focused. It’s funny. His hair is starting to grow in, just a bit. He must shave his head, Daud knows, but how? Does he use a straight razor? That has to be time consuming. Is he going to keep it shaved here? Daud kind of hopes he does-his head is a good shape for bald, and it’s weird imagining Vasco with hair. At least his bruises are mostly faded. Mottled yellows and greens, only when the light is right.

“Daud, there’s water here on the nightstand.” Rose appears besides Vasco, and Daud blinks in confusion at where she came from as she places a jug on the table. “I don’t know, should we make him drink some now?”

“Hmm, I don’t want him to choke. And if we put anything else in him, he might just throw up.” Vasco puts a hand to his chin.

“Okay, so we don’t. But yeah, drink some water when you’re able, Daud. It’s right here for you.”

“‘Tanks…”

Her dreadlocks nearly reach her waist. Daud is struck by the intense urge to reach up and grab the end of one. Why does she keep her hair like that? She’d be prettier if she wore it normally. She turns, and Daud watches her profile. Her freckles are adorable, but there’s something in the slope of her nose and the harshness of her cheekbones that pisses him off, for some reason.

“You guys all good?”

“Yeah. Daud should pass out here soon.”

“Tight. Come get me if he falls out of bed or something.”

There’s footsteps, and a door slaps. More footsteps, the floorboards creaking, and someone starts pulling Daud’s blankets over him.

“Thomas, aren’t you coming to bed?”

“Just give me a minute.”

“He’s just going to kick them off, you know. Drunk people always think they’re hot. I’m surprised he’s still wearing clothes.”

Thomas wanders into his vision, smoothing out the blankets and ensuring Daud is covered. He’s so...Thomas is wonderful. Even after everything’s Daud done, even though he knows Daud isn’t his father. Even though he hoped he was. Why would he hope for that? Why did Daud ever tell him differently? What would the harm be, in letting Thomas believe that? Daud didn’t deserve the honor of being Thomas’s father. He should have been grateful Thomas even wanted him. He’s so cruel.

Daud reaches out and grips Thomas’s hand between his fingers, holds onto it like a lifeline.

“I wish I was your dad,” he whispers.

Thomas just stares at him with indecipherable eyes, mouth pressed tight and the whites surrounding his pupils seeming to waver. Finally, he leans forward and presses his lips to Daud’s temple.

“I love you.”

Then Thomas drops his hand, and returns to the other side of his room where his friends are. Someone turns off the lights, and Daud stares into the darkness. At some indistinguishable point, his eyes slip closed.

 

* * *

 

White, glittering stones, golden trim and pillars of jade. The heavy scent of perfume hanging low in the air. A ceiling of crystal.

He’s been here before.

Daud’s visited the Boyle manor a number of times, of course. Accompanying his Empress to dinners in the banquet hall and teas in the library. But there’s only one other time he’s seen it like this, decked out in wall streamers and curled ribbons, people dressed in their finest milling every which way. A year ago. Sneaking Billie into the Masquerade.

Shaking his head, Daud picks up the fountain pen next to the guestbook. His gloves are gone, as are the bandages he keeps wrapped around his hands. The Mark is laid bare to see.

For some reason, he doesn’t care. He taps the pen against the edge of the table as he surveys the signatures, looking for a place to write his own and wondering whether he should sign as ‘Royal Protector’ or if just ‘Daud’ would be enough to distinguish him. He sets the pen to the paper and the ink blots, black roots creeping over the page and trailing up to the last name signed.

_Corvo Attano._

Daud blinks. It could be a joke, sure. Most of the aristocracy, people who pay more attention than him, would know of Jessamine Kaldwin’s murder. Would likely remember the name of her killer. Someone could be playing a sick joke. But Daud knows that’s not the case.

Corvo Attano is here. The man who held Daud back and forced him to watch his Empress die is somewhere within these walls. He has a reason to be here. A statement to make. A person to kill.

Daud needs to find her.

“He’s just doing his job,” a woman in a black suit and a green mask comments flippantly as Daud steps away from the table. “A party like this, _anyone_ might have crept in.”

Her friend in white folds her arms. “Excuse me, my cousin is a _marquis.”_

“Well, of course I don’t mean _you.”_

The woman in white rolls her eyes, turning to Daud as her companion continues conversing with their male friend. “Are you trying to guess which one is which?” she asks excitedly. “I was thinking of sneaking upstairs to look for clues! Or would that be cheating?”

Daud doesn’t need clues. He knows Lydia is wearing black tonight.

He steps off to the side, into the parlor adjacent to the entry hall. People are mingling here, browsing the bookshelves and watching the front window, waiting for friends that have yet to arrive. Daud steps through the crowd, his head on a pivot, looking for a hostess. He doesn’t know exactly what the Boyle women are wearing tonight, just that Lydia is wearing the black version of the same outfit her sisters are wearing. A mask to hide their faces. Likely something to cover their hair.

Daud himself is wearing no mask. His face, posted on every other street corner and newsboard in the city, is on full display. His scar is distinctive-everybody must know who he is.

He’s wearing his red work coat and still bears the Mark, so this isn’t some sort of time travelling thing. Everyone here thinks he killed the Empress. Yet they don’t scream at the sight of him, don’t summon guards to drag him back to Coldridge.

“There were sexual rites, I can only _assume,”_ one woman gossips with two men. She lowers her voice in mocking whisper and leans forward. “I heard she bathed in her own nephew’s blood!”

“Ridiculous! What sort of hygiene is that?!”

“It’s a ritual for the _Outsider._ To keep them safe!”

“Ella,” her male companion scolds. “You could get her sent to the Abbey.”

“Nobody that rich gets sent anywhere they don’t want!”

There’s an Overseer armed with a music box not twenty yards away. He just stares ahead, clutching his windup key like he didn’t hear a thing.

These people all think they’re untouchable. No matter how many of their friends die by blade or plague. No matter how many Empresses fall. Nothing will topple their towers until they’ve already fallen from them.

“Weeeelcome to my party,” a voice like smoke on the breeze speaks. A woman in a red pantsuit stands before him, her face a frozen mask of porcelain features, plastic flowers piled atop her head. “Hmm,” she wavers as she looks Daud up and down. “A few more drinks and I might find that get-up attractive.”

So that’s the Boyle costume, Daud thinks as he steps away. Flowers, ugh. At least it’s better than last year when they dressed as birds and left trails of feathers through the hallways.

“Careful,” a guard holds up his hand as Daud exits the sitting room. “That’s a wall of light, a gift from the Prime Minister to protect his friends.” He sniffs. “I doubt you qualify.”

He doubts it too. Burrows never liked Billie.

Flowers, black flowers on the top of her head. Daud power-walks down the hall, barely taking in the elaborate wall hangings and confetti littering the floor. His eyes are on the party guests, looking for that black outfit. Lydia is here somewhere. He needs to find her and get her to safety before he finds Corvo. Before Corvo makes a target of her.

Where’s Rose? She was supposed to accompany Lydia tonight. Or Vasco? Lizzy should be with him too. Daud doesn’t know where they are. But somehow, he knows they’re not present at the party tonight. He knows they’re safe. And that’s enough to satisfy him.

“My buildings are full of corpses and rats,” he overhears as he passes the smoking room. “Where’s the fortune there?”

Oh, the poor man.

“If you want to be beaten, go ahead,” his black-vested partner says. “Let your family starve. Sell your wife into prostitution. I’m _sure_ I can get you a good price.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Really, Daud much preferred the back-alley manner of backstabbing to the aristocratic method. The gangs might slit your throat and leave you bleeding out in the gutter all for the change in your back pocket, but at least they don’t try to pretend they’re better than that.

He turns around and nearly stumbles into a woman in white, wearing a wide-brimmed hat carrying an array of flowers.

“I _trust_ you’re on the guest list?” Lady Boyle fixes him with a stare before turning away, brushing some imaginary dust off her pants.

The dining hall is decorated to the nines, showing off the impressive array of sweets and wines, and one long table occupied by some type of fish that’s apparently supposed to be eaten raw. A statue at the end belches out confetti and glitter at regular intervals. Daud glares at it and moves away. Last year, it took two baths and three clothing changes for him to rid every crevice of his body from that junk. Billie had glitter stuck in her hair for a month.

“If something caused this,” a man in a gold mask says. “It wasn’t the Empress’s passing. That’s what they _want_ you to think.”

“Watch what you’re saying!” His red-masked friend whispers in answer.

“Oh, I’m saying nothing against the Regent! She’s the one holding this all together!”

“If the plague was here before the Empress died, it’s gotten a thousand times worse since.” The man in red shakes his head. “I never saw corpses floating by in the Wrenhaven when the Empress was alive.”

“Or you just didn’t notice it, hmm? Kaldwin is restoring order to the city. Some people get crushed underfoot. Why we ever trusted that job with some bumpkin, half-breed wench is beyond me.”

“What’s out there isn’t order.”

“New growth cannot exist without first the destruction of the old, and all that. When you look at it this way, the Empress _had_ to die. For all this to be fixed! Without her, we’re set on the path to a golden age.”

“Do you know they dug down and found the ruins of another city under this one? I bet they thought they were in a golden age too.”

Of all the things Daud wishes back from his previous life, none of this even registers. Never once thought about it, with any sort of longing or without. He didn’t miss this. Not the opulence. Not the company. Not the fine wines or even the food. Not the-

He stops and listens for the music being piped through the rooms at non-obtrusive levels. Okay, he missed the music a little. But they had musicians at home.

Like Lydia. Where is she?

He loops through the rooms again, glancing every which way for a black headdress. Ignoring the attempts at conversation the other party-goers try to engage him in, brush off the guards when they step forward and ask for his invitation. Fancy clothes and masks, but none the one he’s looking for.

He doesn’t care if Attano kills anyone else. He doesn’t care if any of these people are caught in the crossfire of their inevitable battle. They can save their own skins. But Lydia is his friend. He needs to find her. Needs her to be safe.

On his third loop, Daud grits his teeth as the snippets of conversation jump out at him, the voices and masks of all the people who have the nerve not to be Lydia Boyle.

“I happen to know Waverly is in white tonight,” one woman wearing a truly ugly fly mask says. “Perhaps she’s pretending to be a virgin?”

“I don’t know why I even _came_ to a Boyle party in the first place! I almost wish you were that assassin, anything to be done with this!”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? Their niece has this terrible cough as of late-it’s for the best they were evicted. What if it’s the plague?”

“Really, as long as the plague keeps to the common folk, I don’t see a reason to bother. They’re ‘low class’ for a reason! If they don’t like it, they can try not being so lazy!”

“Shall we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight?”

“Oooh, that dress is an absolute scandal!”

“Do you _like_ it?” A woman in white twirls, her skirt fanning out around her. A red sash around her waist, threads of green woven into her hair, a skull mask on her face. “It’s an exact replica of the dress the Empress was buried in!”

By the time he pushes the door from the back hallway to the library open, Daud can barely contain his anger. The laughter reverbs in his ears. The grating voices.

The red Lady Boyle stands in front of the fireplace, paging through a book. She sets it down as she sees Daud approaching.

“Enjoying my pa-”

He grabs her by the wrist, yanking her close. She seems ruffled for a moment, but her hands come to rest on his lapels as he moves his hand down to the small of her back. They step closer together, as if they were about to dance. Like Daud did with his Empress a year ago.

Shoves his sword through her stomach.

The tip extrudes from her back, blood coating the blade. Daud’s hand moves to cradle her neck as he eases her down, her head dipping and lolling lifelessly. The blade slides out of her as easily as it went in.

Someone starts to scream, finally realizing that Lady Boyle and Daud are not, in fact, dancing. The nobles in the room either drop to their knees or flee, screaming for help.

Daud steps forward. He can see the Overseer with the music box through the doorway, walking forward at as fast of a pace he can manage with that thing weighing him down. Daud doesn’t need magic to kill, but he also doesn’t need to waste his time with this. He draws a grenade from his pocket, waiting a good three seconds after pulling the pin to lob it straight at the Overseer’s chest. Both man and machine scatter across the ground in bits.

Guards start pouring into the room. Daud Blinks forward and slits one’s throat before his eyes can fully settle on him. Then there’s gunshots, and Daud moves to the side. Locates the officer with the gun and Blinks above him, landing with his blade through the back of his neck.

Another guard raises his own pistol. Daud Pulls the other surviving guard to take the shot, then drops him like a sack of rocks. The pistol-wielding guard runs further into the room to get a better shot, and Daud Blinks behind him. Cuts his throat.

The noble party-goers are still here, kneeling where they stood and screaming for help while making no effort to help themselves. Daud pulls them up one-by-one. One with a blade through the hollow of their collarbone, another with a gash in their neck. One-by-one, they die. They’ve practically formed a queue.

A guard milling about the base of the stairs spots him as he crosses the entryway, runs forward with his sword drawn. Daud Blinks forward and kicks, sending him hurtling backwards through the wall of light. There’s a spark, and then he’s ash.

He kills the nobles in the sitting room as well. The door was right there. They made no effort to leave.

Someone’s hit the alarm, but Daud pays it no mind. His vision is red, and he can smell the blood that has yet to be spilled. He wants the fight.

He bursts back through to the back hall, cutting down a guard standing directly in front of the doorway in one swipe. Another figure right next to him, and Daud reaches out and pushes her head down, impales the maid’s throat on his blade before he can register what she is. She sputters, chokes, stares at him with unbelieving eyes as he rips her blood out.

There are more nobles, ungrateful, scheming nobles in the smoking room. Daud sprints there, before the red in his vision fades. Blood fuels the haze, and Daud needs to keep it alive. He cuts. He kills. He watches them die.

He can hear guards assembling in the dining hall. A few servants cowering in the halls, he kills those too. It requires blood. He needs to feed this. He needs to keep it going.

One officer takes a shot at him as Daud enters. He deflects it with his blade, sending it pinging off to shatter a nearby vase. One rushes forward, but the others call him to stand aside, and Daud soon sees why.

The other Overseer steps forward, winding his music box and filling the air with that grinding, ear-bleeding noise. Daud stops and stares. The Overseer advances, the guards clustered together at his sides.

Daud runs forward. The guns go off but, not expecting this, hit air. Daud reaches the music box and extends his arm forward, sticks an armed springrazor to the front before jumping back.

The officers see what it is, but it’s half a second too late to react. There’s a mess of torn cloth and meat, and Daud has to lean to the side to keep from being soaked. Bits of flesh litter the floor. Blood splattered across his face.

“Are you here for the cameo?” The white Lady Boyle kneels on the floor, hiding behind the buffet table. “It’s in the attic. Take it. There’s a key to the vault in my bedroom, take it too. Take everything! Just don’t kill me!”

She turns and runs as Daud approaches, but he’s faster than her. Grabs her by the stupid flowers on her ridiculous hat and pulls her back. Plants his sword in her gut. She stumbles as he pulls it out, and he thrusts in into the back of her neck for good measure.

The alarms still blare, the music still playing, but the house is deathly quiet as Daud rounds back through the rooms. Corpses lying everywhere, blood soaking into the marble. Did marble stain? It would take ages to get that out.

He Blinks over the wall of light, landing halfway up the staircase and not wasting a moment ascending the rest. Lydia’s room is on the opposite side of her house as her sisters’, he knows. She’s mentioned it. The door is locked, but one blow from his sword sends it to splitters. Daud steps through.

Purple bedding. Laundry littering the floor. No Lydia.

Waverly’s room, she’s mentioned that they hide in Waverly’s room when there’s an intruder. Wait for their guards to dispatch the thief or stalker, trusting a single locked door to protect them. Didn’t they have a vault in the basement? They’d be safer there. Like this, they’re sitting ducks.

Daud makes for the raised walkway that connects this part of the house to the other wing. Over the edge, he can see the mess he’s left across the hall. Red blood and tiny, shining scraps of paper.

Four more guards pour into the hall, blocking off his progress.

They sprint to meet him. Daud grabs the first man by his lapels and unceremoniously shoves him over the balustrade, sending him screaming to his death below. The closest guard jumps back, his eyes wide.

Daud steps forward, slashing the man diagonally from shoulder to hip. His eyes focus on the farthest guard, at the end of the hallway, before he’s even had the chance to return to neutral position. His hand extends, the Mark glowing as he Pulls, Blinks, brings the two together so he can slash backwards and open his stomach. Then he turns on his heel and sends a bolt into the last guard’s eye.

With that done, Daud turns and continues on his way.

The first bedroom he breaks into is a near replica of Lydia’s, done over in refined black and lacking the piles of clothing strewn about. A portrait of the Prime Minister gracing the walls. The third of the bedrooms in red, the make-up table stacked high with pots of rogue and eyeshadow palettes, the whole room stinking of perfume.

_Did_ she go down to the basement, to hide in the vault? That’s what he would have told her to do, Daud thinks as he doubles back. Maybe she’s gleaned something else from his lessons than chokeholds and pressure points. But she still wasn’t safe, not with Corvo Attano at large. Who knows what all that man could do? And Daud needs to see her to know she’s alright, protect her from Attano. These guards couldn’t do it. Nobody could but him.

One of them, she said the key to the vault was in her bedroom. Said something else, about the Boyle cameo, their most precious treasure. In the attic.

Daud finds the pull cord rather easily, once he knows what he’s looking for. A hatch above the top ledge bordering the room, sliding open to reveal the crawlspace above. He doesn’t know how the ladies Boyle get to it themselves-doesn’t know how Lydia climbed up here without any sort of ladder. But he Blinks, and ducks through the opening.

There, sitting on a closed chest, is a woman dressed in black. Her legs crossed, her hands folded nicely in her lap. When she sees Daud enter, she reaches up and removes her mask and hat.

Underneath is the face of Billie Lurk.

“What are you doing here?” she says in a flat tone. Daud steps further in, the tip of his sword trailing on the ground.

“I’m here for you,” he hears himself say. “Come on. We have to go.”

Billie sets the hat on her lap, her fingers fiddling with the fake flowers. “I’m not leaving.”

“It’s not safe for you here.”

“I know.” She stares at the wall, her eyes far away.

Daud approaches her. His coat is stained with blotches of dark red, blood under his fingernails and splatters of it across his knuckles. He kneels in front of Billie, feeling the wet spot in his knees where his flesh presses up against the blood-soaked fabric.

“I need to take you out of here,” he says. Safety was an illusion. Anyone could find her up here-Daud did easily enough. He could take her down to the vault, lock her in, but there were always ways to breach the doors. He needs to take her away. Needs to put her in a boat and take her far, far away.

Billie turns her face down, looking at him with that blank expression. “I can’t leave, Daud,” she repeats. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I have to.”

“You have to _leave.”_

“I’m not leaving you behind.” Daud free hand darts out, wrapping his fingers around hers. Clutching her white-gloved hands. “I can get you out of here, Billie.”

Billie presses her lips together, a half-smile and her eyes looking down on him with something like nostalgia in her eyes. She pulls her hands back, places her hat on the floor and stands up.

“Corvo Attano is coming for you,” he says as she steps away, watching the hatch at the other side of the attic. She nods.

“I know.”

“Then what are you still doing here?”

“Waiting.”

“We don’t have to.” Daud wets his lips before he continues speaking. “I can fight him, you know.”

“No. You can’t.”

“I _will.”_

“No.” She whirls around. “You kill him, someone else will step in to do the job.”

“Then I’ll kill them too.”

“And where will you stop? How many of my citizens will have to die for you to be satisfied?”

For Billie? All of them. She was better than them all. He’d kill every person on these fucking islands for her. Set this doomed Empire aflame.

There’s blood on her hands. Her gloves blotched and stained, wet fabric clinging to her fingers.

“I need to protect you, Billie.” He steps forward, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “Attano will-”

“Yes. He will.” She stares. “And if he’s meant to kill me, then I’ll die tonight.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“You don’t.” She shakes her head, stepping backwards. “This isn’t about you. Maybe it’s not fair, but I can’t think of much that is.”

“I have to try.” He swallows.

“You don’t _have_ to do anything, Daud, don’t you see? We all have our choices. But we can’t change them once they’re done. You just have to live with them. So don’t waste your breath.”

“There has to be _something.”_ He closes the distance between them, his hand curling protectively around her shoulder. “I can’t _leave_ you here.”

“You have to.”

“No! I won’t give up on you.” He stares at her, those warm brown eyes he could stare into for hours, the slope of her cheeks and the thick lips that only smile at him half-heartedly. “You’d never give up on yourself.”

“I’m not giving up on anything, Daud. But there’s no point in resisting what I can’t control.”

_“This_ isn’t set in stone.”

“Yes it is! You can’t stop it!”

“I will!”

“No.” She shakes her head. Still smiling. Her right hand comes up to wrap around his bicep, her thumb running back and forth over the material. Her left snaking down to wrap around his sword hand. “You can’t.”

She pulls. His hand moves with hers, lifting his sword.

Plunges it into her own belly.

“No.” Daud shakes his head, staring. The blood has already started flowing, the fabric around her stomach growing steadily darker as the wetness spreads. “No!”

He pulls. Billie’s hand doesn’t waver, and her body is as giving as stone. The sword doesn’t budge. Not one inch, not one bit. His other hand goes to her flesh, pushing, trying to keep the blood inside of her. Try to keep her together.

“No, no, no…”

“Yes.” Billie’s eyebrows quirking in anger, that stony glare.

“No!”

“Yes, Daud.” She nods, her face grim as she stares him down. “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

Daud startles awake to the sound of Thomas’s alarm clock.

He grimaces and squeezes his eyes shut, willing Thomas to turn the damn thing off before he goes deaf. It takes a good few seconds for him to realize that it is in fact off, and the sound he’s hearing is only the ringing in his ears.

He did _not_ miss hangovers.

Daud groans and flops over on his stomach. It’s far past the time he usually gets up. Normally he’s out the door with Rose, who starts her chores a few hours before the day begins for the rest of them, sometimes even waking before her. He should get up. Seize the day.

Second of Hearths.

He shoves his face into his pillow.

On the other side of the room, Thomas and Vasco dress themselves in near silence. After a bit, Daud hears the telltale sounds of steps across the floor, feet creaking their way to his bed.

“Daud,” Thomas says, in a voice that’s not really a whisper but not full-volume either. “Daud, it’s time to get up.”

He groans, more to let Thomas know he’s not dead than anything else.

“Daud, it’s past eight.”

“He’s gotta be hungover, Thomas.”

“Well, that’s his own fault!” Thomas says in a slightly louder voice.

“And maybe still a little drunk?” Vasco says, then the floor creaks as he steps forward. “Won’t kill him to sleep in one day. Let’s go get breakfast.”

Thomas sighs. “Fiiine.”

There’s more footsteps, and then the door closes a little more loudly than it needs to be.

Daud keeps his head planted firmly in his pillow. The material presses on his eyes, creating kaleidoscopes of colors on the inside of his eyelids, dark fireworks like the ones shot off at the Boyle parties. He breathes, his chest barely expanding to allow room for his lungs. He feels cold.

_‘You have survived all your worst days yet, and today will be no different.’_

Not. In. The. Mood.

He lays there. He’s cold. He’s thirsty. The pillow presses up against his nose too much and he can’t quite get enough air to be comfortable. He could move, lay on his back. Pull his covers up. Drink some water.

He doesn’t.

He lost his coat at some point in the night. Socks too. They’re probably on the floor. He can’t find the energy to lift his head and check.

He lays. Thinks blank thoughts. There’s nothing, no energy and no motivation to do anything else. He just lays there.

The door opens again.

“Hey, Daud.” Thomas is quieter this time, tiptoeing to his side. “We brought you some breakfast. Ricardo made bread this morning.”

He doesn’t move.

“Daud,” Thomas groans, then the bed dips as he sits down. “You can’t just lay in bed all day.”

“Why not?” Rose’s voice comes from the general direction of the door. “Let him stew in his misery, if that’s really what he wants to do.”

“Can you just...eat something? Please?”

“Thomas, this man has been going hard, nonstop, since the minute we broke him out of prison. He sleeps, like, four hours a day. He _deserves_ a day off.”

“Come on, Daud.” Thomas stands up again, and Daud feels his hands at his shoulders, shaking him. “I know what day it is, but-”

Daud turns his head just enough to get the words out. _“Go away,”_ he roars.

Thomas steps back, quiet. Rose steps forward.

“Just leave him be, Thomas,” she says gently. “From what you’ve told me, it’s probably _good_ if he gets a good cry out today. Leave him alone.”

“I...fine. I guess.” Thomas’s hand over Daud’s fists, balled into the sheets. “There’s bread and water on the table. Just...come talk to me if you need to, okay?”

Then Thomas, mercifully, leaves.

He lays some more. Faintly, he can hear the day’s activity. The gaggle of voices downstairs, water creaking through these shitty old pipes. Even some faint birdsong outside. He hates his supernatural hearing.

He wants quiet because even the rustle of his bedsheets make his head feel like it’s going to split open, and every decibel to reach his ears infuriates him with its audacity. But the quiet closes around him like thick humidity on a summer’s night and he’s suffocating in it, drowning in his own thoughts.

Time passes like a dripping faucet. He lays. He waits.

Daud turns on his back. His eyes are unbearably dry and his eyelids stick to its surface for one unbearable, excruciating second every time he blinks. But he lacks the energy to just keep them closed. He lacks the energy to do anything but lie.

Twenty-four. Not an exceptionally exciting birthday, but one she should be here to celebrate all the same. One she should have been allowed to see.

He’s seen...ten of her birthdays. Technically eleven, but she didn’t tell him when she turned thirteen. It was only a few days later, when he was giving her some speech about maturity and how he had to make decisions for her because she was only twelve that she put her hands on her hips and replied brattily that she was thirteen now, thank you very much. A ‘celebration’ for them then would have likely amounted to Daud shelling out the coin for-or just stealing-three honey nut treats or something to that effect, but he...still wishes he had done that, when he found out her birthday had passed. It would have been something, to show someone gave a damn about her.

Her fourteenth, she was a princess by then. She had a party, a cake taller than she was and a mountain of presents. She was visibly uncomfortable with the attention and her father reassured her afterwards that they could have a smaller celebration the next year. By her fifteenth he was dead, and an Empress’s birthday was an international holiday whether she liked it or not.

Would this have been the year she finally told everyone to stuff it, that they weren’t celebrating while Dunwall was in its death throes? Or would she have folded under the pressure to have a party, an excuse for her court to drink on her dime and make fun of her outfit behind her back? He’d like to think she’d have put her foot down at last.

There will be no parties today. Not because Billie finally showed her spine, but because there are so few people left alive in Dunwall to celebrate. Because everyone in her court is too afraid of the Crown Killer to leave their homes, to gather with other potential targets in a place where they’ll be vulnerable and ripe for the killing. Because Billie is dead and didn’t turn twenty-four this morning.

She’s dead. Dead and wrapped in a shroud, arms crossed over her chest and laid to rest in a cold block of stone. She’s dead. Daud lays on his back and pretends he is too.

He can feel her at his fingertips, tapping at the glass and begging to be let in. She’ll want to make him feel better, he knows. Why?

Why doesn’t she go comfort Thomas with her presence? Why is she with him, whispering words of encouragement and helpful secrets into his ear? What has Daud ever done to deserve it? He watched her take a blade to the gut and did nothing. He watched her die.

It’s not the same, he knows, with her trapped in that wooden idol. It’s just wrong. She’s fractured. Unwhole. She’s uncomfortable and distressed and he’s the one that let it get to this point.

He wants Billie back. He doesn’t want the bandage that is the Talisman on his grief, but he doesn’t deserve even that.

After a while, Daud pushes himself up. Slides his legs out from under the covers, lets his toes brush against the floor. He took off his pants at some point apparently; he’s just sitting there in his drawers.

At least nobody’s up here to see it. Daud doesn’t care about Thomas seeing him in his underwear, but he has scars. Less so than on his arms, but they burned him here too. Whipped the back of his thighs and calves with reeds. One witch took a dagger and stabbed him in the meaty part of his thighs, multiple times.

He stares at them, the jagged marks where the knife met his flesh. Thinks about how Billie’s stomach would have looked, if she wasn’t so decomposed by the time they pulled her from the water. Deserved it. He deserved it.

There’s no pain. Daud would prefer pain. He’d rather distract himself with the discomfort of his hangover, rather immerse himself in the memories of his tortures. He has the brief, stupid thought of grabbing one of his knives and opening up his wounds, just to be able to feel them all over again. But then someone might notice him moving oddly to accommodate the injuries, there would be questions-Thomas would be so upset. No, if he was going to do that, he’d need to be smarter about it. But he still wants the pain. He wants something to fill this void inside him. His bones feel like ice, his stomach a yawning chasm. His insides are crumbling in on themselves, shattering like glass, crunching under the pressure because there’s just nothing there to resist it. His chest is a vacuum. He’s empty.

And he can’t stand it.

Is this what the rest of his life, his life without Billie, going to be like? Will he ever be able to think of her without his heart feeling like it’s been poked with a cold needle? Will he ever be able to eat or take a sip of tea without that voice in the back of his head reminding him that his Empress is no longer able to do so, that he doesn’t deserve sustenance, doesn’t deserve the very air he breathes? Will he ever start _feeling_ anything else?

He stands up. It’s been hours by now-the sun is coming in bright through the skylight, though the floor is still cold as the grave. Past noon, he guesses.

Daud puts his pants back on. It’s all the activity he can manage for the moment. He sits back down on his bed, twists and reaches up to the ledge behind his bed. His hand finds the pistol he keeps there easily.

He pulls back the chamber, checks that it’s loaded. Of course it’s loaded. He checks it every night, ensures he has some reliable method of fighting back, if he’s startled out of his sleep and needs to. He’s never fired it. Not this one. He had one at Dunwall Tower, but even that one he used more to garner attention than for offense. He’s had to shoot a few people, but if they were out of swinging distance for him, they usually weren’t much of a threat to Billie. He protected her with his sword.

Daud pops the cartridge back in. One bullet, he knows. This pistol is a single shot-Jerome’s mentioned being able to find a magazine upgrade, effectively turning it into a revolver-but Daud has no use for a revolver. Wouldn’t hurt. But he’d rather use his coin to improve his wristbow or buy more supplies. There’s no reason he needs to modify this pistol, or the one he keeps in a holster on his coat. Not now. His fingers dance over the metalwork, hover over the hammer, the barrel.

Puts it in his mouth.

He has no intention of squeezing the trigger, of course. No, not when there’s so much to do. Not when Thomas still needs Daud around. And if he was-not like this. Not fast and messy- _loud_ like this. People would probably hear, know instantly, have to live with that sound and the knowledge of what had happened.

And if they didn’t, someone would find him. Unexpectedly. Probably Thomas, fuck, that’s the most horrible thought. But possibly Rose or Vasco, as they practically live up here too. Reed occasionally comes up to tend the fire. Oh, Void, if Reed were the one to find that, Daud would never forgive himself. And no matter who found him, someone would have to clean him up, wouldn’t they? One of the servants. Ricardo would insist on doing it, so the kids didn’t have to. He didn’t deserve that. Daud couldn’t do that to him. And what was left of him, where would they even put him? If someone in their group died suddenly, they’d probably have to bury them in the yard-or sink them in the Wrenhaven. He knows Thomas would object to that, insist on interring Daud someplace with honor. They’d have to stash his body somewhere. Attract rats. Smell.

Thomas. No matter how many notes or audiographs Daud leaves him, Thomas would think it was his fault. There would be no convincing him of it, that the opposite was true. That Thomas is the only reason Daud’s bothered to live this long. He’d wonder forever if he should have anticipated it, could have saved him, would never accept that he couldn’t. He’d blame himself and his memories of Daud would be forever shadowed in a red mist.

No, he’s not going to pull the trigger, but Daud sits with the barrel of his gun in his mouth and basks in the knowledge that he _could._ One twitch of his finger and this could all be over. No more missing Billie. No more worrying about Thomas, no more thinking about all the ways Daud could lose him too. No more remembering Coldridge, no more silently fearing the possibility of being rendered unconscious and brought back. Done. He’d be done. And whoever found his corpse or had to scrub his blood and brain matter from the walls, that wasn’t his problem. He’d be dead. Just like his Empress.

Part of him is tempted. But the other part-the part that should be setting off alarm bells, should be screaming him away like he’s on the edge of a cliff and that cliff is on fire-that part is only whispering to him. Telling him softly that he can, but he _shouldn’t._ Gently leading him back. That part is small. Overwhelmed by the parts of him that scream to just do it and get it over with.

But Billie has always brought out the best part of him, hasn’t she?

The muzzle tastes like gunpowder, and that tastes exactly how it smells. His teeth close around the barrel. He bites, hard, and squeezes his eyes shut.

Then he pulls it out of his mouth.

Daud grimaces as he rolls his tongue over. That’s a taste he won’t get out of his mouth for a while. He pulls the cartridge out again. Puts the pistol back on the ledge-the cartridge on his nightstand. Tips his head back and breathes.

He needs a fucking drink.

 

* * *

 

The hall goes noticeably quiet when Daud walks in. People look away, glance down at their laps and barely seem to breathe as he passes. Daud glares at them all and walks to the kitchen.

He knows the cabinet where Ricardo keeps his stash of spirits. Cooks with them frequently. They’re all fed here on Thalia’s dime, but alcohol and cigarettes worked differently. That, everyone was responsible for providing themselves with. Wasn’t a big deal, considering most people here weren’t currently wanted for regicide or presumed dead. Daud can’t show his face at the market, so he’s always just given Jerome some extra coin and tells him what brand of smokes he wants. Alcohol has never been a concern.

He’s...technically stealing. And he doesn’t know if Thalia covered his cooking spirits or if Ricardo paid for them with his own coin. Well, Daud’ll pay him back either way. He’ll buy him a whole stockroom of liquor. Man’s got a job for life at the Tower as far as Daud’s concerned, and he’s not just saying that because he sorely missed Serkonan cooking.  

Wine, no. He doesn’t fuck around with that fruity shit. He wants something that will get him drunk in as few sips as possible. Sake, he holds a grudge against for once making Billie so drunk she almost ended up in bed with some idiot who tried to take her to his room to ‘sleep it off’ and didn’t realize Daud was watching. He’s always preferred whiskey, but judging by the current throbbing at his temples, whiskey no longer prefers him. Getting old really sucks, he’s finding.

His hand closes around a bottle of rum. He’s feeling nostalgic. His mother drank rum, straight from the bottle. And mezcal, but he’s never been able to find any of that since moving to Dunwall.

He stands up and turns for the door, only to see Paul standing in the doorway.

Daud doesn’t really remember all what happened last night, but he vaguely remembers falling down the stairs like an idiot and having to be hauled back up them. He thinks Paul was there. He has the faint notion that Thomas was quite upset with him.

“Hey,” Paul says, folding his arms. He nods to the bottle in Daud’s hand. “You want a drinking buddy for that, or do you want to be alone?”

Daud pulls the bottle closer. “Alone.”

Paul nods. “Cool, cool.” He looks around not meeting Daud’s eye. “Look, I...get it. Shit’s fucked man, and you gotta do what you need to do. But you scared those kids last night. You’re making people worried about you.”

Daud just reciprocates his stare. He knows. He doesn’t need a lecture.

They watch each other. Finally, Paul breaks first, huffing and looking to the floor.

“Drink some water at least, you piece of shit.”

Daud fills up a cup from the tap and downs it all while maintaining eye contact. Paul doesn’t move when Daud passes him by on his way out.

The air is crisp, feeling more like a fall day than a late winter one. Still too cold for it to really be comfortable, so Daud is alone outside. Suits him fine. Dusk is just beginning to set in.

He finds a spot at the side of the mill, in the barren space between the brick and the shitty apartment building Trimble’s lives in. There’s a single scraggly tree growing back here, likely stunted from the lack of sunlight, but now it just looks sad. Naked, without its leaves. Daud figures it’s perfect.

Moves behind the tree, positioned just so most wouldn’t see him at first glance, but Daud can easily lean back and see the entirety of the mill yard.

His fingers close around the hilt of the sword that’s graced Billie’s table for the past month. It’s been bothering him lately, the fact that he essentially has his jailer’s sword up there. Billie wouldn’t like that. And no matter how hard he cleaned it, he couldn’t stop seeing witch’s blood staining the blade.

It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fit for an Empress.

He plunges it down into the earth. It sticks up like a tombstone, half buried in the dirt. Daud sits cross-legged in front of it.

Opens the bottle, fills his glass halfway. Then he tips and pours the liquor out over the ground. Something his mother did, or similar to it. She’d spill a capful of every bottle she opened on the ground, saying it was for the spirits. She explained to him, when he’d get concerned about ghosts, that she meant the spirits of their ancestors. That it was meant to symbolize sharing a drink with them, to honor them. He thinks she also meant the spirit of the Outsider, but she didn’t say any of that to him.

Daud knows his mother technically fit the criteria of a witch, but she was nothing like the witches that plague Dunwall now. She was just weird. Not even a bad weird-just weird in the sense that people didn’t understand her.

He doesn’t fully understand everything she did either-forgotten some things, others just left unexplained. But he thinks this kind of ritual would apply to Billie too.

It feels weird, like consecrating this dead ground. And really, all he’s doing is wasting liquor. But he hopes she appreciates the gesture.

He pours another glass and sips as he stares at the upright sword, the slightly darker patch of dirt. Sips. Waits.

He should say something. Say what he needs to say to her. He’ll talk to the Talisman afterwards, talk to her for real, but he needs to get used to this. To talk to her and not hear her answer back. He needs to reconcile the fact that she won’t be back. That the Talisman, as much as he feels blessed to hold it, is only drawing out the pain of his grief, delaying his acceptance.

Acceptance. Daud doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to accept the travesty that is Billie’s death.

Didn’t he more-or-less accept it in Coldridge? He spent six long months without the Talisman, without even this echo of her voice. How did he do this before? Well, he supposes the answer was that he didn’t. Daud didn’t do anything in Coldridge. He ate and slept, walked to the interrogation room. He sat, he felt pain, and he counted down the days to his execution.

He doesn’t...wish they had let him be executed. Daud’s grateful for this chance, to get revenge and to be here for Thomas. But if they had chosen someone else, if he’d been hanged that day like he was supposed to be, well, Daud can’t say he’d really prefer this option to it.

This was easier when he expected to die.

Daud straightens his spine, sitting up a little straighter. Clears his throat.

“I miss you,” he says.

The wind is his only answer.

He listens to it for a bit, brushing off the voice that tells him this is stupid. Talking to no one.

“I miss you a lot.”

What else is he supposed to say? Daud doesn’t know how any of this works.

“I...replay what happened a lot in my mind. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

‘Sorry’ doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. This whole thing feels like a cheap farce of a penance. Daud wishes he were on his knees in front of Billie’s tomb, kneeling at his Empress’s feet where he belongs. And do what? Fall over it and beg her forgiveness? Daud would not be so brazen to ask Billie to forgive him.

“They’ll die for it,” he says, closing his eyes. No, he didn’t come here to talk about revenge. For once, Daud doesn’t want anger coloring his thoughts. “I know I can’t make it up to you. Some things are beyond forgiveness. But I’ll die working to earn it.”

The wind picks up, and Daud feels the breeze at his cheek. He takes another drink of rum, downing as much as he can stand in one gulp.

“You’ve told me...that I can’t change the past,” Daud says slowly. “And I’m not trying to. What happened happened. You...you’re gone. I could have stopped it but I didn’t, and I just have to live with that.”

And part of living with it was imagining all the ways he could have stopped it. Could have saved her. _That_ is part of his punishment, the penance Daud will spend the rest of his life serving.

“I think back to what I could have done that day, and I think I’m not looking far back enough. I should have noticed...stuff. I should have noticed and took care of it before it was a threat to you. But I-”

He presses his eyes closed, shuddering as he swallows.

“I shouldn’t have let them take you that day,” he breathes out. “When the Spymaster’s agents came for you, I should have snuck you out the back, or...or something. I shouldn’t have let them find out whose daughter you were. It was my duty to protect you and I failed. I’m...sorry.”

He’s not stupid enough to think she’s controlling the wind, but it’s a nice thought as it ruffles his hair.

Daud blinks rapidly. “There’s...a lot of things I’ve never told you, and part of it was decorum, but it’s mostly just because I’m a broken human being. I’ve always been. You fixed me more than I thought any person could, but some things just...aren’t repairable. Like me.”

He shifts. “Always planned to tell you, someday. But I never could, not until now.” Not until no living person would hear it. “I’m not sure if I can tell you it all now either...but I’ll try.”

He owes it to her to try.

“I...wish I’d been your father. Because then none of this would have happened.”

There’s nothing but silence.

Of course there is. Daud is talking to a dead woman.

He turns the drinking glass upside down. Stands up, draining as much of the rum as he’s able to before tipping the bottle over and pouring the rest of the contents over the dirt.

Daud goes over the mall rather than through it, no need to alert people to the fact he was leaving. He’d be back soon anyway.

He Blinks until he finds the riverfront and a relatively unoccupied stretch of bank-not difficult, considering nearly everyone’s dead-and stands on top of the tallest building that doesn’t look prone to collapsing. He puts his toes at the very edge of the ledge, looks down. Marvels at the drop. Holds out his hand and lets the empty rum bottle slip from his fingers, waits for it to shatter on the ground below.

Daud sighs and inches back, ever so slightly. Stares out at the water, the one boat swimming around the Distillery District on the opposite side of the river. Finally, he allows Billie to come to his hand.

_‘Darkness has been falling across Dunwall, ever since that day,’_ she whispers. _‘But it is the moment just before the light goes that matters most of all.’_

Her voice is like that first lungful of air after your head breaks the surface of the water you were drowning in. Relief spreads through him, but it’s swiftly followed by an overwhelming sense of dread. She speaks without a throat, without lungs, and even though Daud knows in his heart that this, _she_ will always be his Billie, she’s wrong like this. And it hurts.

Daud presses his lips together. “The light’s already gone. It went out the day you passed.”

_‘I hear laughter echoing across the halls of your sanctuary, small kindnesses that take from our hands and multiply. This is a world awash in corruption and pain, but don’t despair. There is goodness here too.’_

Well, he’s glad that she can see it, at least.

“It would be brighter,” he breathes, holding her up. “If you were still here. There’s-” He swallows. “There’s _nothing_ I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock.”

_‘Time is an illusion, as is death. The weight of our choices against the strength of our hearts, that is a balance we must maintain.’_

“If death is an illusion, then tell me how to break it.” He strokes the face of the Talisman, feeling her under his fingertips. Like dipping his feet in the ocean and feeling warm waves wash over his toes.

_‘We are divided like this. A river of souls, and only through crossing it may we reunite.’_

“I know I can’t bring you back,” he says to her. “I’d give anything to, but I know better than to wish for it. I’d join you now, but…” Daud looks up at the water.

_‘You are needed.’_

“I know,” he breathes. “I know. But wherever you are, I...wish I could be with you.”

Billie was always...fearless isn’t the right word. Everyone has their fears. Even Daud, he’d tell her as a girl, sitting on the floor of their hotel room and reminding her that anyone in her position would be afraid. But she was brave, always put on a tough face and charged ahead no matter how scared she felt.

But the Void is a very fearsome, terrifying place. Daud’s seen it, and he wishes he hadn’t. Whatever aspect of Billie that isn’t with him in the Talisman is bound to the Void. And he just doesn’t know how much she suffers for it. Doesn’t know if she’s afraid of fading like she’s meant to.

And, despite knowing he’s needed here, Daud wishes he could be with her so she didn’t have to face it alone.

Not...yet. He doesn’t have to let her go quite yet. For now, he can hold onto this piece of her. And pretend.

Billie is quiet for a long moment, both of them drinking in the presence of the moment. Then, very quietly, she whispers to him.

_‘When this crisis has passed, you must promise to release me.’_

“You know I will,” Daud says.

_‘Promise me.’_

It’s an order. Straight from the Empress.

“Cross my heart,” he mumbles, making the motion. “Once Thomas is safe. I promise.”

If she were able, Daud might swear she sighs.

_‘I only tell you this to make easier our farewells,’_ she tells him, and Daud swallows the lump in his throat. _‘Like this, I am eternal. But no being is meant to see forever, to be what I have become. I must return home. You must take me back and allow me to die.’_

“I promise,” he repeats, and brushes his lips over the Talisman. “When this is over, I will guide you home.”

He holds her close to his chest, staring out at the river. The orange sky just beginning to fade to purple over the city. Her city.

_‘Your mind is fraught with planning and directions.’_ She sounds almost...amused.

“Can you blame me?” he mumbles. “I have a lot to think about. A lot I need to do. Not sure where to start.”

_‘You want me to point the way, to help you on a path. No.’_ She breathes. _‘Let us be lost here together for a moment.’_

Despite himself, Daud allows himself the smallest of smiles. “For you? Anything.”

Then he closes his eyes. Feels the wind at his back and the sun on his face. Smells the river brine mixed with the salty sea air, the hard coldness that comes with the winters. Even as his fingers close around the shape of the Talisman, Daud focuses on the warmth behind it and if he tries, he might be holding her hand.

He thinks of nothing. Together, Daud just lets them be.

 

* * *

 

“Morning, asshole.”

Daud grunts in Lizzy’s direction. Paul gives them an odd look, but goes straight back to interrogating Grim Alex.

She’s stonewalling them. New for her. But Daud doesn’t let it get his hopes up too much. It’s been over a week. She’s not going to talk. He needs to start looking for new leads. That’s why Galia’s here, after all-they’ll talk it over after they’re finished with Alex.

Lizzy sidles up to him. “Heard you spent the whole day drinking yesterday,” she hisses.

Daud doesn’t so much as twitch his head in her direction. “Yup.”

“He drank a fifth of rum by himself,” Paul says with a flat face. At the corner of the room, Trimble clicks his tongue.

“Daud!” he scolds. “That’s not the kind of irresponsible behavior I expected from you!”

“I didn’t drink all of it,” he says, rolling his eyes. Maybe half the bottle got poured out.

...Though he did nurse a bottle of scotch that he stole from Edgar for the rest of the night. That’s up in the attic, under his bed. Half of it left. Hopefully Thomas won’t find it.

Lizzy folds her arms and glares at him. “If you _told_ me you were an alcoholic, I wouldn’t have bugged you so hard to go drinking with me, old man.”

Daud turns to her. “I’m not an alcoholic.”

“I’m using the politically correct term, but I’ll call you a drunk if you want to be a bitch about it.”

“I’m not that either.” He rolls his eyes. “I had completely unrelated reasons to stop drinking the first time.”

“Daud, normal people don’t go from not drinking to downing fifths in one night.”

“She’s got a point, Daud.” Galia opens her eyes to blink at him accusingly. “No shame in it, you know, everyone always wondered if you were a recovering alcoholic.”

“I’m _not._ I only drank yesterday just...because.” He rolls his shoulders. “I haven’t drank anything today, have I?”

He hasn’t, and he isn’t going to. It was the third. He can handle the rest of the month now.

“...It’s ten, Daud.”

“And I’m _fine.”_

“Why’d you all think that?” Lizzy wrinkles her nose in Galia’s direction. “He done this before?”

“No, he just never drank and was ultra-weird about the Empress drinking.”

“Was _she_ an alcoholic?” Paul asks.

Galia nods.

“No, she was not!”

“She drank, like, a bottle of wine a night, at minimum.”

“It helped her sleep.”

“You would knock drinks out of her hand at parties, Daud, you _must_ have known she had a drinking problem.”

Daud huffs. “No, I was trying to keep her from embarrassing herself. She was a...sloppy drunk.”

Galia rolls her eyes. “You mean a slutty drunk.”

“Oooh.” Paul turns around. “I didn’t know this.”

“Oh, yeah. I made out with her once. Got to feel up her boobs.”

“Lucky,” Lizzy whines.

“I don’t want to hear about this.”

“That makes sense; she was predisposed to alcoholism,” Trimble drawls. “Both her parents were alcoholics, by all accounts.”

“I’ll agree on that one, but can we change the fucking subject?”

The way this was going, Daud’s going to need a drink today.

“Right!” Paul snaps. “So. Alex. Have anything to share about that?”

Alex remains huddled in the opposite corner, facing away.

“We’re not going to get anything out of her now,” Daud says. “Our only option is to keep her locked up until we can treat her and find our witch some other way. Fleet, have any of your contacts turned up anything promising?”

“Hmm?” She opens her eyes again. “Sorry. Nodded off for a second.”

Daud hears footsteps, and he turns to see Paul walking slowly around the cage. He opens his mouth to say something and Paul holds up his hand, continues walking to the corner where Alex sits with her knees up to her chin, mumbling nonsense.

“Hey, uh.” He sticks his hands in his pockets. “Are you...okay?”

The mumbling just gets louder, but no more intelligible.

“I think...yeah, I think she might have officially gone nuts,” he says, pointing. “Like, she is not okay. Even by her standards.”

“Congratulations, Trimble, you’ve officially driven a woman insane.” Lizzy folds her arms.

“She was clinically insane before she stepped foot into my clinic.”

“This ain’t your fucking clinic.”

“Guys, seriously.” Paul stands up straight, blinking. “Should we do something?”

Daud steps over to him, rolling his eyes. “Do what? If she’s ill, maybe she’ll relinquish control of Hypatia.”

“Or, you know, Hypatia could die too?”

“She’s not going to _die,_ Paul. She’s taken water. And it takes longer than a week to die of starvation.” Daud scoffs. “Trust me. I know.”

“Yeah, don’t feel too bad for her, Paulie,” Lizzy pipes up. “She was literally going to chain me and Daud up and eat us in bits. I didn’t even know being eaten alive was a fear of mine. Now I know.”

Daud turns back to see Paul having approached the cage, and is reaching out to the bars. He lurches forward to pull him back, but it’s too late.

The second Paul is within reaching distance, Alex leaps. Her hands close around his wrist and she pulls, hard, and Paul’s skull clangs as it smacks against the bars. Daud barely sees Alex bring his hand to her mouth before his arms are around Paul’s waist.

By the grace of the Void, Daud’s able to pull him free alone, though Lizzy is already at their side to assist. Paul’s eyes are wide, holding his wrist.

“She bit me!” he yells, like it’s a surprise. Indeed, there’s a pair of distinct teeth marks at his forearm, and a bloody scrape that trails down to his pointer finger.

Lizzy smacks his head. “No fucking shit! That’s why we say don’t approach the cage!”

“Let me see.” Trimble is behind them, snatching Paul’s wrist and examining it with displeasure.

Daud whirls to Grim Alex in indignation. “You do know the day you kill one of our friends is the day I kill you, right?”

“I’ll kill you first,” she snarls, sticking her face through the bars.

“For the last time! You. Are. Not. Getting. Out! If you hurt anyone here, I will personally unload every bullet in this godforsaken place into your head!”

“Killing me kills Hypatia!”

“I don’t give a shit!” he roars.

He turns away then, both in disgust and concern. Trimble is shoving a scrap of cloth onto Paul’s wound, clicking his tongue.

“Apply pressure to this,” he says flippantly. “It broke the skin, but it’s not deep. Unless whatever this is can be transmitted through bite, he’ll be fine.”

“Better hope she’s not really a werewolf,” Galia says, standing on her tiptoes to see over the crowd.

“She got a chunk out of Rosie-Ro’s leg and she hasn’t developed a hunger for human flesh yet, so I think he’s okay.”

“If you won’t let me have _him-”_ Alex shrieks, pointing. “Then give _her_ to me! I just need one!” She bangs on the cage bars. “Just one. I’ll take my time. Make them _last…”_

Lizzy just wrinkles her nose at you. “Yeah, no. We’re kinda attached to her. And Paul.”

“Then bring me one you aren’t so fond of! There must be _someone_ here you’d do without!”

“Uh, no, people generally don’t feed their friends to crazy bitches. Not sure why you thought that’d fly.”

“They will if it serves them! Him-” She jerks her finger to Daud. “He’s been deceiving you all! He bears the night-black Mark of the Outsider, branded across the back of his hand!”

“We already knew that.” Lizzy holds her arms out. “Literally everyone here already knows.”

“Uh, Lizzy…” Paul points hurriedly to Trimble.

“Oh, I’ve seen it too.”

“What? When did that happen?!”

“Giant fiery ball in the river, remember?” Lizzy flutters her arms like a bird taking flight. “We had to strip him naked. I got to see his dick too.”

“Lizzy,” Daud chastises.

“What? And anyway, I dunno why you’d want to eat an old man like Daud. Feel like he’d be all stringy.”

“I...don’t even know whether to be insulted right now.”

“It’s great luck that this happened,” Trimble raises a finger. “With this particular group, but if you two were so careless as to show her the Mark-”

“Kinda had to use it!”

“Well, she could tell our other allies, is all I’m saying.”

“Daud and I already talked about it.” Lizzy jabs her thumb into Daud’s sternum. “She opens her mouth, we just say she’s being crazy and trying to stir up trouble. Thomas’ll believe Daud over this monster.”

One would hope. But lately, Daud’s not too sure.

Daud sighs, rubbing his nose. He did, in fact, give a shit. Whether she’s any help to him or not, Hypatia is Eugene’s niece, and Eugene has been nothing but good to him. That, and Hypatia is genuinely a good person. A better person than Daud is, at least.

“What’s going on?” he asks her flatly, turning back. “You’re acting weird, even for you. Is…” He sighs. “Is something wrong?”

He’s asking a crazed cannibal if there’s something he can do to help. Daud needs that drink. Preferably sooner rather than later.

Grim Alex glares at him, but even he can tell that her eyes are losing their fire. “You _know_ what I want.”

“I’m not-” He pauses, looking off to the side. “You need meat.”

“Yes, yours! I will strip the flesh from your ribs!”

“Daud, we’re not feeding her little cannibalism addiction.” Lizzy’s annoyance shows through. Daud, however, is unfettered.

“Will _any_ meat do?”

“What?”

Alex’s face actually goes neutral for a moment, staring at Daud with big, round eyes.

“You need the protein. Does it _specifically_ have to be human meat? Because that’s going to be a problem.”  
“Why?” Galia shrugs. “Corpses are a dime a dozen out there. We don’t even need to kill anyone, just bring back one of those poor fuckers.”

Paul makes a disgusted face. “Galia. Those are _people.”_

“They’re rat food anyway, why does it matter what they get eaten by?!”

“We’re not bringing in dead bodies.” Daud shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“Have you considered the reason why they’re all dead in the first place?!”

“We’re immune to the plague!” Galia points. “She probably is too!”

“There’s people here who aren’t! We bring a body in, we risk infecting the entire group! I will not allow plague in this place!”

“And it’s just gross.” Lizzy raises her hand. “Just saying.”

“So.” Daud huffs and turns back around, folding his arms. “Does it _need_ to be people?”

Alex glares at him with an intense hatred, but it’s nothing Daud isn’t used to. Finally, she drops her gaze. Shakes her head.

“No.”

Daud sighs. “I can get you meat,” he says. “But in return, you need to answer our questions.”

“You want me to roll over for scraps like a hound does for its master?”

“I mean, you act like a dog,” Lizzy scoffs.

“If you want to eat, you’ll do it.”

“What are you going to give me?”

Daud actually hadn’t thought about it yet-figured he’d deal with things as they came. “Fish, likely.”

She breathes hotly, looking away. “I don’t like it. Meat-eaters, those are best.”

“I didn’t ask what you liked. We aren’t rich and the city’s in the middle of a blockade. That’s what I can get my hands on. So. Fish?”

She scowls. “I loathe you, Daud. If your Empress were still alive, I’d tie her down and make you eat until your stomach burst.”

“I’m about to walk away. You can either take the deal or starve.”

_“Fine!”_ She drops to her knees, glaring daggers at the floor. “Fine. I’ll tell you about Ashworth. But I need it raw.”

“I think we can accommodate that.” Daud turns around. “Galia, can you go to the market and buy us a fish? Something still on the bone?”

Galia drops her arms to her side. “Why am I on grocery duty?”

“Just do it.” He steps forward, pressing a few coins into her hand.

She sticks her lip out, pouting. “Ugh.”

Then she turns on her heel and stomps out of the store. Daud waits until the storm door slides down behind her to roll his eyes.

“So.” He turns back to Alex. “Ashworth.”

“Oh, no. I tell you now and you’ll just leave me to starve. You can wait until I’ve had my meal.”

“And how do we know you won’t just clam up once you’ve eaten?” Daud steps forward. “You don’t get it, do you? We hold the cards here. You don’t get to make the rules.”

“How ‘bout we compromise?” Paul pipes up. “When Galia gets back with your breakfast, you fess up.”

Alex glares, but she doesn’t object.

“That’s fine, but we need to make this clear. You tell us Ashworth’s full name,” Daud says, listing off on his fingers. “You tell us where they are and how to get to them, and how they can be killed.”

“You know what, fine.” She huffs. “I don’t even care anymore. They’re all disgusting creatures. And clearly they never valued me for what I am.”

“Yeah, they’ve barely bothered to look for you,” Lizzy snorts.

Daud smacks her arm. “No tricks, I mean it. If you give us fake information, I will know, and I _will_ kill you,” he threatens.

Alex smirks. “Unless you don’t come back.”

“I’ll come back. I don’t doubt you’ll conceal things in the hope that Ashworth will kill me, but understand this. I am _not_ so easily defeated.”

They mill about for a while, waiting for Galia to return from the market. Daud’s hand is itching for a smoke, but Alex can’t leave the room and as much as he dislikes her, Daud doesn’t like subjecting non-smokers to that smell.

...Really, he wants a drink. Daud’s looking forward to that half bottle of scotch.

Lizzy jabs him in the ribs with her elbow. “Bet you ten coin we’re gonna have to take Ashworth down at this Boyle party anyway.”

“I’m not gambling with you.”

“Slut.”

Galia slams the door open with a scowl, and holding a long, bluish fish.

“Shit smells,” she sniffs, walking back to the group. “Was sorely tempted to bring back a minnow or something.”

“If you had, I’d just send you back,” Daud says, reaching out to take the fish by the tail. “And take away your Bond.”

“Is that like, your version of grounding us or something?”

Daud turns back, holding the fish high in the air. Grim Alex’s eyes follow it like a panther’s, her mouth hanging partially open.

“Okay. Talk.”

“Yes, yes.” Alex nods excitedly. “The woman you’re looking for. Breanna Ashworth. She leads the witches, second only to my mistress.”

“Fucking damn…” Lizzy stomps. “It was the chick! If just one hoe would of used a goddamn gendered pronoun, we’d know!”

“The fact that Daud never guessed is proof of his incompetence. Delilah brought her to the Tower multiple times to work over the Empress. He must have seen her! What kind of Protector are you, to not take notice of those who shared her bed?”

Daud clears his throat. “Off-topic. Tell us where to find her.”

“Mutcherhaven District. The old Brigmore Manor.” She stumbles over her words, practically salivating. “Many of the witches have relocated to the Tower, but Brigmore is their home. Their base. It will not be penetrated so easily.”

Brigmore. Why was that familiar?

“Mutcherhaven is outside the city walls,” Lizzy muses. “Which are locked down. It’s outside the quarantine zone. We’ll need to take a boat.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he tells her, then turns back to Alex. “So how are you going to make penetrating it easier for us?”

“There will be a party,” she says quickly. “On the night of the Boyle Masquerade. A ball meant to rival that of the old barons and mock those that walk the halls of high society. Allies and potential allies of the coven, people who would understand their ways. Wear a mask and become one with them, and you will get you chance at Ashworth.” She pushes her face up against the bars, grinning maniacally. “And that’s where your story will end because Ashworth will tear you apart and leave you strewn across the floor like the dirt you are!”

With that, Daud tosses the fish. Alex’s hands dart out to catch it, and then there’s only the disgusting sounds of wet chomping and chewing as Grim Alex devours the fish, scales and eyes and all.

Lizzy sidles up beside him. Smacks their shoulders together. And finally leans forward to look at him with a stupid grin on her face.

“Looks like you’re taking me to a party after all.”

Daud just scowls.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ran long again, and I'd say it was because the scene where Daud and Lizzy get drunk ended up longer than anticipated, (I literally deleted both their backstories and rewrote them from scratch once and I still only ended up eliminating 1500 words) but really, I expected that part to be long. It was that everything else ran long too. I don't know what it is with this fic, honestly. It's really weird to think that this is hands-down the longest piece I've ever written, but it is. Well, the longest fanfic I've ever read was nearly two million words, so I figure as long as I don't break that, I'm good. 
> 
> I wasn't going to do Lady Boyle's Last Party in any capacity, but I couldn't resist Daud having to deal with cranky nobles and bitching about glitter getting in his underwear. Then because it's a dream we have to make it angsty, because Daud's dreams are always mentally scarring.
> 
> Daud and Lizzy drank a whole handle of alcohol between them, so like...don't exemplify them, please. I don't endorse their decisions. With the fact that they are both short, Daud hasn't drank in a decade and has the alcohol tolerance of a walnut while Lizzy has a body fat percentage of about 0, neither of them should realistically be able to stomach that. The only reason they aren't dead is because magic.
> 
> Daud is 100% a sad drunk, btw. Lizzy is obviously a slutty drunk, and it's my headcanon that Billie was totally a slutty drunk as a teenager and morphed into being more of an angry drunk as she got older. (mostly because she used to be angry just 100% of the time) I haven't really thought about everyone's drunk alignments, but I do know that Rose is the type of drunk where you can't tell she's drunk, because that's just Her Personality, (she gets slightly chattier) and when she goes to stand up she just falls over because she's *wasted.* Idk about everyone else. Jerome's probably a slutty drunk too.
> 
> Fun story-Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for nine days, fainted upon learning that her cousin, Edward VI, had named her his successor. It didn't end well for her either-Mary I had her head chopped off a year later. But that was the inspiration for the 'Billie fainting' story.
> 
> I listen to a lot of Linkin Park while writing this, which fits because Daud's basically the personification of everyone's thirteen-year-old edgy period, but this chapter had moody songs on loop. 'Hymn To The Sea' from Titanic was on when I started crying. If y'all want to imagine the scene where Daud gives Billie peace and watches her fade into nothing in parallel with how it played out with Jessamine in DH2, that song is basically the soundtrack for that moment. I'll just put that out here now because the way that actually plays out in this fic is going to be...not like that. At all.
> 
> Also my bird bit me in the nipple the other day. That has nothing to do with the story but this was a heavy chapter and we could all use some lightening up. Don't get a bird unless you're willing to take care of a flighted toddler with a can opener on its face, y'all.


End file.
